CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 
 
 J 
 
 A SEEMON 
 
 BT 
 
 MAURICE S. BALDWIN, 
 
 CAirON or CHBIBT CHCBOH CXTUKVRXL. 
 
 PREACHED IN CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL 
 
 SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 1871. 
 
 WBLISHGD B¥ REai7EST. 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL, ST. NICHOLAS STREET. 
 
 1871. 
 

SERMON. 
 
 '^^For I know him^ that he will command his children ^ and 
 his household after him^ and they shall keep the way 
 of the Lordy to do justice and judgment,''' — Gen. 
 xviii., 19. 
 
 It was one of the most remarkable statements 
 ever made by God concerning Abraham, the 
 grandest of all the patriarchs, that He could 
 tnisl his fidelity to his children. "1 know 
 him." says God, " I know the affection and 
 loyalty of his heart alike to Me and to his 
 children, and therefore am I confident they 
 will be brought up in My stedfast fear and 
 love." ^'Fidelity to his children,''^ I hear all 
 the fathers and mothers in this assembly 
 repeating to themselves, "Surely in this vir- 
 tue there is nothing so rare or peculiar as to 
 call for remark; there is not a father or 
 mother among us would not, if need be, die 
 for their children, why then say there was 
 anything peculiar in Abraham's love, or why, 
 above all, declare it was most remarkable 
 
God slioiild trust lu's fiihUtijV I answer, it 
 7t/<'?5 somotliing singiihir; it was lav more llitin 
 lie couUl say of all pai'ents; and I doubt 
 wliether lie would sjiy of every individual 
 father in this congregation, or of those gene- 
 rally who ])rofess Christhmity, / kwnv them, 
 that the jj IV ill coniviaud their diUdren and their 
 hoifschold after them^ and they shall keej) the way 
 of the Lord. 
 
 A child, what is it? A world, created 
 indeed bv the hand of God, but vet a woi'ld 
 on which you can impress your own character 
 and feelings. And, as the i)ure, unsullied sky 
 can be aflected by the land beneath it; as it 
 can be dimmed and clouded by pestilent 
 vapors lising from below, or only made more 
 exquisite in contrast w^ith the vivid fields: so 
 the pure, innocent mind of childhood can be 
 clouded by the sins and passions of a father's 
 heart, or, on the other hand, be so cleared 
 and brightened that in after manhood he 
 shall have the glorious summer sunshine to 
 illumine his path. All fathers, too, must 
 feel that the great column which supports the 
 fabric of their house is growing old, and must 
 soon crumble to decay, and then the whole 
 w^eight will come upon their children ; and 
 the question is^ will they be able to sustain 
 
it? will tliev be men and women of liii;li and 
 noble clianieter, I'elleetin*:^ new histre on tliuir 
 parents, or only the mere froth and spray of the 
 ocean, driven np and down by all the passions 
 
 and tumults of the heart? Will tlicv be tho 
 granite w^alLs against whieli the billows bi-at 
 in vain, or only helpless pensioners on tho 
 eai)rieious gods of fame, prosperity and 
 wealth? These are the quesstions which wise 
 and thcmghtful parents will propound to 
 themselves, and these are the themes to which 
 thev will devote all their energies and powers. 
 
 What a strange, and even contradictory 
 substance a child's heart really is. What (jood 
 and what evil impressions may we make upon 
 it. We call a child's heart tender, its alfec- 
 tions fickle, its fancies transitory, and so to a 
 certain d.^gree thoy are; but yet oftentimes 
 the feeblest tracings on a child's heai't arv3 
 absolutely indelible, tlie storms and sins of 
 after life cannot erase them, and down to old 
 age the lessons of early childhood have a power 
 and efficacy which work alike for good or evil, 
 when every other voice is silent and all other 
 work obliterated. 
 
 In the instruction of children, the iii'st duty 
 that should be always imposed upon them is: 
 obedience to parental authority. 
 
Toll Tiavo often wallu'd tlirouu'li n }2;lomny 
 forest, juid there two tliiiip:s must liavc sti'uek 
 yon, one, tlio freedom from JiU restniintobserv- 
 iiMe (!very\vliere ; the other, ohedienee to hiw. 
 Amid the sighinp;s of the wind, amid tlie lon<^, 
 unbroken solitudes of nature, with no eye to> 
 sec tliem but God's, and no arm to check tlumi 
 but His, all the trees and vines of the forest ai'e- 
 al >sol ut(dy uncontrolled and fi*ee. JNTo being is- 
 there to bind the gigantic pines, or stay tliem 
 as they mount upward to the skies. The wild 
 vine is free to throw itslielidess arms round the 
 luige monarchs of the forest that rise like the 
 ])illa,rs of some gi'and cathedral. All are free 
 to grow and rii)en as they i)lease; yet all are 
 bound. True to the law of their nature, the 
 lord I V trees silently rise till each can see its 
 God. 'I he lichens and mosses have alawbv 
 wliitdi they grow^ in meek loveliness. And 
 thus amid the wildest ai)paient confusion, 
 every object in the forest, from the humblest 
 leaflet to the grandest oak, moves grandly on 
 in ac^cordance with a law as strict as that 
 which regalates the stars above. Turn now to 
 the moral world and observe the contrast. 
 Here there is freedom, but it is the reckless- 
 ness of the lawless. Here there is law, 
 but it is the law of sin. Passions, not 
 
God, ordinarily rule mankind. The jirinciple 
 is not, "what does God command?" but what 
 do we like best? Impulses are the fierce 
 winds that blow us up and down on the Adria 
 of life, and therefore we must all see the abso- 
 lute necessity of imparting to ihe young the 
 high and holy principles of true religion, — of 
 grounding them in every thing that is pure 
 and good, that they may not in after years be 
 carried to and fro by every wayward influence, 
 but amid sorrows may have peace, amid weak- 
 ness strength, and amid passions purity and 
 truth. 
 
 As the first step to this, teach them the 
 meaning and authority of a parental com- 
 mand. Before the child can grasj) the mean- 
 ing of the simplest theology — ^before it can 
 understand the nature of any creed, the 
 parents must be to them almost in the room of 
 God. They are the supreme head of authority 
 to them, and therefore they should, above all 
 things, be conscientious how they discharge 
 so solemn a duty. 
 
 Three laws should always be observed. 
 First, let a command he a command. Many 
 parents ruin their children by irresolution. 
 They make a law, but if their children cry 
 about it, if they worry and fret under the 
 
restraint, if they implore them to remove it, at 
 last they will give way, though they know in 
 their own hearts that refusal would be better 
 than permission. You should first make up 
 your minds what is really right, then issue 
 your command and stand to it. But let 
 parents vacillate, let them alternate between 
 what they ivill and what they will not allow, 
 and in a little time their authority will sink 
 into contempt. Their children will soon 
 understand that a parental command is only a 
 momentary obstacle that a little crying and a 
 little coaxing can invariably remove. And 
 this evil w ill soon develop into the awful form 
 of disobedience to God himself; into that wild 
 rebellion which terminates in the ruin and 
 destruction of the soul. 
 
 A second rule is: nei^erlet one parent be a 
 court of appeal from another. Nothing chil- 
 dren find put sooner than which is the more 
 indulgent parent of the two. The one who 
 gratifies all their desires and reverses all the 
 decisions of the otLc^r is loved, while the one 
 who corrects them is looked upon as a real 
 oppressor, and if not hated, is at least disliked. 
 The two should be a unit, and to allow a differ- 
 ence between the parents is to sow" discord 
 among the children and make them invari- 
 

 
 ably believ6 that the sterner of the two is their 
 foe and not their friend. 
 
 A third rule is : Let all your teachings lead 
 to Christ. Bring your children to the Saviour 
 of the world, that he may take them up into his 
 arms, put his hands on them and bless them. 
 Teach them to come to him as the unfjuling 
 fountain of all comfort and love ; and as the 
 eagle teaches its young to look straight up into 
 the face of the blazing sun as the object toward 
 which they are to fly, so teach your children to 
 look up into the bright face of the Sun of right- 
 eousness as the mighty Being to whom all life 
 is to be an ascent, and whose immediate pre- 
 sence is to be their fixed abode. The natural 
 reverence a cliild has for its father is very great, 
 and when it sees him kneel down and pray 
 into those calm blue heavens, it may not know 
 the meaning of prayer — it may not know who 
 God is, but it will clasp its little hands, kneel 
 down and do ^^fathey does. And when that 
 father has gone to his long home; when all 
 others have forgotten him, that child, now 
 grown to manhood, will bless him with tears in 
 his eyes. 
 
 And now suppose the first flush of childhood 
 over. The children are no longer prattling 
 innocents; they are ripening into men and 
 
10 
 
 ■ 
 
 women, gazing upon a new world with won- 
 dering emotions, but yet with tlieir religious 
 convictions almost if not altogether unformed ; 
 and the question is : How shall they now be 
 ed ucated ? The answer will be decided in most 
 cases by that which parents consider to be of 
 pai'amount importance. If, for instance, they 
 believe the eternal welfare of their children is 
 of the liighest moment — if they look upon the 
 salvation of their souls as that which must 
 chiefly concern them, then they will tptke great 
 care to place them where all the religious influ- 
 ences about them will be good ; where they 
 will be led to Christ as the hope and Saviour 
 of their soul. If, on the other hand, they con- 
 sider /^^///^ accoinpiishmentsi\\Q all-important 
 requisite, leaving religion to care ior itself, then 
 they will only seek some institution where 
 things are agreeable to their taste. And here 
 I must speak of one of the greatest and most 
 dangerous evils of the day: the practice of 
 sending Protestant children to Roman Catholic 
 schools and convents. It would be quite 
 unnecessary for me to allude to this painful 
 truth, were not the evil of immense and grow- 
 ing dimensions. The days were when our 
 orthodoxy would be startled at so strange an 
 idea as that of sending our children to the 
 
. 11 
 
 Cluirch of Rome to be educated by her, and 
 made fit, tlii'oiigh her influence, to take their 
 future position as members of a Protestant 
 communion and suj)|)orters of the reformed 
 Church of Enghmd. But to-day things are 
 changed ; and as moral evils, like some physi- 
 cal maUidies, are contagious, the practice has 
 spread until at last the whole community m 
 quite accustomed to the sight. The Protestant 
 population of Montreal is not large, yet I am 
 credibly informed that there are at present 
 upwards of four hundred and fifty Protestant 
 scholars in Roman Catholic schools in this city 
 and its vicinity. They may not indeed all 
 come from the city, many may be from the 
 west, but with this we are not concerned, as. 
 not a few here must plead guilty. 
 
 Now, I ask, is this right? Can it be consis- 
 tent? Can it be praiseworthy? Can it beany- 
 thing else than a downright sin against God to 
 take your sons and daughters at the very age 
 when they are most susceptible, and place 
 them in institutions where every effort that 
 Rome can make will be made to subvert their 
 faith and secure their allegiance to herself. 
 "Ah," rejoin those who advocate this policy^ 
 "w^e have had a most distinct promise that 
 nothing whatever will be done to interfere 
 
12 
 
 with their religious opinions." Nothing will 
 be done; no, nothing. Yet, unless you liave 
 made the most solemn stipulations to the con- 
 trary, they will attend mass; and amid tlie 
 smoke of incense, the ringing of bells and the 
 adoration of the altar, it is quite possible their 
 Protestantism nuiy evaporate. But suppose 
 your daughters are allowed to stay outside 
 meekly reading their Prayer looks while mass 
 is being performed, wdiat then ? Will nothing 
 then be done to tamper with their faith ? No, 
 nothing. They Avill only pet, fondle and 
 caress your children till they think the 
 convent is the very gate of heaven, leading 
 straight up to the Paradise of God. They will 
 give them prizes without number, wdiether 
 they deserve them or not, and all to please 
 them and you. They will work on their feelings 
 and gratify all their fancies, until at last they 
 will gain their point, and claim your children 
 for themselves. 
 
 But what, I ask, are the secular advantages 
 of sending your children to Ronum Catholic 
 schools and convents ? "Many," I am told in 
 reply. "The w^hole circle of the sciences is 
 traversed, and everything that the polite and 
 refined should know is freely taught, and at 
 the least possible expense." But, T ask, in 
 
13 
 
 wliat department of human learning will not 
 the peculiar theology of the Cliiirch of Rome be 
 apparent? "Will you trust her text books? 
 Will }ou have your cliildren learn truthfulness 
 from Bell arm ine, and casuistry from the school 
 of Loyola ? The histories they will recommend 
 will be peculiarly impartial. They will be par- 
 ticularly reliable in their accounts of the reigns 
 of Henry YIIL, Edward YI., Mary and Eliza- 
 beth. Sure to give oitr view of these tossed and 
 troubled times. No, everything intellectual 
 will be coloured with their peculiar modes of 
 thought, and these dark hues will show them- 
 selves on your children all their futui'C life. 
 
 Again, suppose no direct Romanism is 
 taught. Suppose your children are left 
 entirely to themselves, what then; if they are 
 not being taught evil, are they being taught 
 good ? If they are not being taught Romanism, 
 are they being instructed in Protestantism? 
 Is their spiritual life being advanced ; are they 
 growing in the truth ? No, you know they are 
 not. At the very time they should be cared for 
 most they are neglected, left to the wayward 
 passions of their hearts, and the cold maxims 
 of a thoughtless world. 
 
 To conclude : I do not blame the Roman 
 Catholic Church for using every effort to bring 
 
14 
 
 over your children to her pah) ; she would 
 be faithless did she not do so. But 1 beseech 
 you to pause before you place those dearest 
 to you in her power. Some may come back 
 untouched, but others will linger in the 
 convent until you begin to be alarmed, and 
 when at last you urge them to leave they 
 will tell you they intend to be received into 
 the Church of Rome. You may lift up a 
 father's voice or shed a mother's tears, l)ut 
 with the air of a martyr they will tell you 
 they must obey God rather than man, and 
 though it be with pain, will leave your com- 
 munion for ever. 
 
 The present system is doing more to injure 
 our Church than tongue can tell. Many come 
 back only to find fault with the simplicity of 
 the Church of England, and to institute 
 changes our Protestantism cannot consent to. 
 Let parents, therefore, awake to their duty. 
 Let them see that their children are brought 
 up in the pure principles of our reformed faith ; 
 that Christ in His glorious beauty is set before 
 them, and not the gloomy superstitions of a 
 Church darkened with the errors of a thousand 
 years. 
 
 I might, if time allowed me, show a remedy 
 on the score of expense. I might point out the 
 
15 
 
 imperative duty of our founding some public 
 institution where Protesta-nt young ladies 
 might receive n liberal education atatriding 
 cost, but I must forbear for the present, and 
 await a future opportunity.