There is no question, too, that, in
very many instances, the faint glimmering of religious interest, which
would have kindled into a bright flame, is extinguished at once, and
perhaps forever, by the rough inquiries of a religious friend. Besides,
if you make inquiries, and form a definite opinion of your pupils, they
will know that this is your practice, and many a one will repose in the
belief that you consider him or her a Christian, and you will thus
increase the number, already unfortunately too large, of those who
maintain the form and pretenses of piety without its power; whose hearts
are filled with self-sufficiency and spiritual pride, and perhaps zeal
for the truths and external duties of religion, while the real spirit of
piety has no place there. They trust to some imaginary change, long
since passed by, and which has proved to be spurious by its failing of
its fruits. The best way--in fact, the only way--to guard against this
danger, especially with the young, is to show, by your manner of
speaking and acting on this subject at all times, that you regard a
truly religious life as the only evidence of piety, and that,
consequently, however much interest your pupils may apparently take in
religious instruction, they can not know, and you can not know, whether
Christian principle reigns within them in any other way than by
following them through life, and observing how, and with what spirit,
the various duties which devolve upon them are performed.
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