The whole structure which I have been attempting to build
will tumble into ruins without this. Be constantly watchful and careful,
not only to maintain intimate communion with God, and to renew it daily
in your seasons of retirement, but to guard your conduct. Let piety
control and regulate it. Show your pupils that it makes you amiable,
patient, forbearing, benevolent in little things as well as in great
things, and your example will co-operate with your instructions, and
allure your pupils to walk in the paths which you tread. But no
clearness and faithfulness in religious teaching will atone for the
injury which a bad example will effect. Conduct speaks louder than
words, and no persons are more shrewd than the young to discover the
hollowness of empty professions, and the heartlessness of mere
pretended interest in their good.
I am aware that this book may fall into the hands of some who may take
little interest in the subject of this chapter. To such I may perhaps
owe an apology for having thus fully discussed a topic in which only a
part of my readers can be supposed to be interested. My apology is this:
It is obvious and unquestionable that we all owe allegiance to the
Supreme. It is so obvious and unquestionable as to be entirely beyond
the necessity of proof, for it is plain that nothing but such a bond of
union can keep the peace among the millions of distinct intelligences
with which the creation is filled.
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