panions which they choose, or by hazard light upon, we find by experience, that the first impressions they take, and course of action they get into, are very bad: and so, consequently, must be their habits, and character, and future behaviour. Thus, if they are not trained up in the way they "should go," they will certainly be trained up the way they should not go; and, in all probability, will persevere in it, and become miserable themselves, and mischievous to society: which, in event, is worse upon account of both, than if they had been exposed to perish in their infancy. On the other hand, the ingenuous docility of children before they have been deceived, their distrust of themselves, and natural deference to grown people, whom they find here settled in a world where they themselves are strangers, and to whom they have recourse for advice as readily as for protection; which deference is still greater towards those who are placed over them: these things give the justest grounds to expect, that they may receive such impressions, and be influenced to such a course of behaviour, as will produce lasting good habits; and, together with the dangers before mentioned, are as truly a natural demand upon us to "train them up in the way they should go," as their bodily wants are a demand to provide them bodily nourishment. Brute creatures are appointed to do no more than this last for their offspring; nature forming them, by instincts, to the particular manner of life appointed them, from which they never deviate. But this is so far from being the case of men, that, on the contrary, considering communities collectively, every successive generation is left, in the ordinary course of Providence, to be formed by the preceding one; and becomes good or bad, though not without its own merit or demerit, as this trust is discharged or violated, chiefly in the management of youth.
We ought, doubtless, to instruct and admonish grown persons, to restrain them from what is evil, and encourage them in what is good, as we are able; but this care of
