yieldings to the
influence of the mere animal appetites and passions of childhood it may,
for a time, co-exist. We should never, therefore, say any thing to children
to imply that, in the great question of their relations to God and the
Saviour, we take it for granted that they are on the wrong side. We can not
possibly know on which side they really are, and we only dishearten and
discourage them, and alienate their hearts from us, and tend to alienate
them from all good, by seeming to take it for granted that, while _we_ are
on the right side, _they_ are still upon the wrong. We should, in a word,
say _we_, and not _you_, in addressing children on religious subjects, so
as to imply that the truths and sentiments which we express are equally
important and equally applicable to us as to them, and thus avoid creating
that feeling of being judged and condemned beforehand, and without
evidence, which is so apt to produce a broad though often invisible gulf of
separation in heart between children, on the one hand, and ministers and
members of the Church, on the other.

_Promised Rewards and threatened Punishments_.

9. It is necessary to be extremely moderate and cautious in employing the
influence of promised rewards or threatened punishments as a means of
promoting early piety. In a religious point of view, as in every other,
goodness that is bought is only a pretense of goodness--that is, in reality
it is no goodness at all; and as it is true that love casteth out fear, so
it is also true that fear casteth out love. Suppose--though it is almost
too violent a supposition to be made even for illustration's sake--that the
whole Christian world could be suddenly led to believe that there was to be
no happiness or suffering at all for them beyond the grave, and that the
inducement to be grateful to God for his goodness and submissive to his
will, and to be warmly interested in the welfare and happiness of man, were
henceforth to rest on the intrinsic excellence of those principles, and to
their constituting essentially the highest and noblest development of the
moral and spiritual nature of man--how many of the professed disciples of
Jesus would abandon their present devotion to the cause of love to God and
love to man? Not one, except the hypocrites and pretenders!

The truth is, that as piety that is genuine and sincere must rest on
very different foundations from hope of future reward or fear of
future punishment, so thi