My Friends,

It is an awful and important charge that is committed to you. The
wisdom and welfare of the succeeding generation are intrusted with
you beforehand, and depend much on your conduct. The seeds of misery
or happiness in this world, and that to come, are oftentimes sown
very early, and therefore whatever may conduce to give the minds of
children a relish for vertue and religion, ought in the first place
to be proposed to you.

Verse was at first design'd for the service of God, tho' it hath
been wretchedly abused since. The ancients among the Jews and the
Heathens taught their children and disciples the precepts of
morality and worship in verse. The children of Israel were commanded
to learn the words of the song of Moses, Deut. 31. 19,30. And we are
directed in the New Testament, not only to sing with grace in the
heart, but to teach and admonish one another by hymns and songs,
Eph. 5. 19. and there are these four advantages in it:

1. There is a greater delight in the very learning of truths and
duties this way. There is something so amusing and entertaining in
rhymes and metre, that will incline children to make this part of
their business a diversion. And you may turn their very duty into a
reward, by giving them the privilege of learning one of these songs
every week, if they fulfil the business of the week well, and
promising them the book itself when they have learned ten or twenty
songs out of it.