Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children | Page 2

do amiss.
Nothing can excuse your forgetting Him.
If you at all believe in a Supreme Being, the Creator and Governor of
the world; if you believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him, and at the same time an avenger to execute
wrath upon every soul that doeth evil, the least particle of common
sense or common feeling will tell you, that nothing should be put in
competition with his will. When his will is clear, it must be obeyed
without hesitation. I am sure that you will assent to this. If religion is
any thing, it is every thing. It is, indeed, the one thing needful, in
comparison with which every thing else sinks into insignificance, into
nothingness.
Endeavour, then, to keep up in your mind and heart this habitual sense
of religion by every means in your power. It will require from you
considerable care and attention. The lively spirits natural to your time
of life, and the thoughtless levity of some of the young men into whose
society you will be thrown, will have a tendency to make you think less
of religion, if not to induce you entirely to forget it. Be ever on your
guard against thus swerving from your allegiance to your Creator.
Nothing will contribute more to preserve you from this danger than
regularity and earnestness in your private devotions. When you rise in
the morning, seek from God spiritual strength to enable you to resist
and overcome the temptations to which you may be exposed during the
day. Every night implore his forgiveness for your many failings and
transgressions, and his protection against the dangers which surround
you. Suffer nothing to induce you to neglect private prayer.
You will of course be required every day to attend chapel. Consider
such attendance not as an irksome duty, not as a mere matter of routine

and college discipline, but try to regard it as a privilege, and to take a
real interest and pleasure in it. Acquire the habit of joining fervently in
the prayers, and of constantly deriving from the lessons and other
portions of Scripture, the doctrinal and practical instruction which they
were intended to convey. Many college chapels are furnished with
Greek Testaments and Septuagints. You will judge from experience,
whether following the lessons in the Greek assists in fixing your
attention, or whether it diverts it from the matter to the language. My
own opinion is in favour of the practice.
Make a point of giving to Sunday as much of a religious character as
you can. I am not recommending a Jewish strictness. Let Sunday be a
day of cheerfulness; but let your reading and your thoughts, as far as
may be, partake of the sacred character of the day.
The study of the Scriptures constitutes an important part of your
preparation for your degree. This study will furnish an appropriate
employment for a considerable portion of the Sunday. Always attend
the University Sermons. I recommend this not merely as a branch of
academical discipline, but as a means of religious and intellectual
improvement. The sermon will generally, I believe, be worth attending
to. The select preachers are chosen, for the most part, from the ablest
men in the University; men, several of whom are likely hereafter to fill
the highest stations in the Church. You will seldom be driven to have
recourse to the advice of the pious Nicole in his Essay, "des moyens de
profiter de mauvais sermons." The various modes in which different
preachers enforce or illustrate the same great truths, and the diversities
of their style and manner, may afford you matter--not of ill-natured
criticism--but of useful reflection. Some colleges require their
under-graduates to give every week in writing a summary of the
sermon which they have heard at St. Mary's. If you adopt this practice,
you will find it contribute greatly to fix your attention, and to give you
a habit of arranging and expressing your ideas with facility and
readiness. Of course, some preachers deserve this steadiness of
attention much more than others.
It is, I trust, unnecessary to remind you of the duty of receiving the

Lord's Supper, whenever it is administered in your college chapel. In
some colleges, nearly all the under-graduates partake of this ordinance;
in others, I believe, almost all neglect it: at least this was the case
formerly. In such and similar cases, you must be guided, not by
common practice, not by the example of numbers, but by what you
know to be your duty. If you feel any doubt or difficulty, frankly
mention it to your tutor. There are, I am persuaded, few tutors now in
Oxford, who would not be able and willing to assist you with their