life and conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few and
such confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said,
perhaps, the soonest mended; and yet the child keeps asking, and
the parent must find some words to say in his own defence. Where
does he find them? and what are they when found?

As a matter of experience, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine
cases out of a thousand, he will instil into his wide-eyed brat
three bad things: the terror of public opinion, and, flowing from
that as a fountain, the desire of wealth and applause. Besides
these, or what might be deduced as corollaries from these, he will
teach not much else of any effective value: some dim notions of
divinity, perhaps, and book-keeping, and how to walk through a
quadrille.

But, you may tell me, the young people are taught to be Christians.
It may be want of penetration, but I have not yet been able to
perceive it. As an honest man, whatever we teach, and be it good
or evil, it is not the doctrine of Christ. What he taught (and in
this he is like all other teachers worthy of the name) was not a
code of rules, but a ruling spirit; not truths, but a spirit of
truth; not views, but a view. What he showed us was an attitude of
mind. Towards the many considerations on which conduct is built,
each man stands in a certain relation. He takes life on a certain
principle. He has a compass in his spirit which points in a
certain direction. It is the attitude, the relation, the point of
the compass, that is the whole body and gist of what he has to
teach us; in this, the details are comprehended; out of this the
specific precepts issue, and by this, and this only, can they be
explained and applied. And thus, to learn aright from any teacher,