I would say the same of other religious duties. Do not force the little drowsy urchin to sit up to family prayers. When he happens to do so, let him hear you thank God in simple terms for the privilege of being permitted to pray to him, and implore of him blessings whose value he feels and knows. If you find occasion to preach in your prayers, (a bad practice by the way,) do not preach about matters which none but a Doctor of Divinity can be expected to understand. On the interesting subject of fashionable amusements, as they are called, I own I feel more difficulty. It chiefly arises from the consideration that the youth who is old enough to take an interest in such amusements, is at a more unmanageable age than formerly. It is not so easy to restrain him, without letting him be conscious of the restraint. It is not so easy to draw him off from a pernicious pursuit, to one less dangerous. He is no longer to be satisfied with those cheap equivalents for forbidden gratifications, which made it easy to command his obedience, without estranging his affections. The whole business of education at this stage, is a difficult and delicate operation. I cannot imagine any general rule for a class of cases as various as all the infinite varieties of the human character. Let us suppose some of them. If, in spite of all the care that had been taken to soften and subdue his heart, and beguile him from self-love to the love of his friends, and of God his best friend, if in spite of all this he continued obdurate, wilful and rebellious, I am conscious that I should be at my wit's end. I do not know but that in such a case, it would be the part of wisdom to yield to those feelings which a parent would naturally experience, and, acting as in obedience to the unerring instincts of nature, to resort to severity instead of tenderness, and endeavor to bring down his heart with sorrow. As a part of such a system, it would be a matter of course, to deny him this indulgence.