The last objection to a classical education is, that the system of the Heathen morality is generally too deficient for those who are to be brought up as Christians.  To this I answer, that it is quite as good as the system of the morality of the world.  I could procure purer sentiments, and this generally from the Heathen authors usually called[54] classical, than I can collect from many, even of the admired publications of our own times.  The morality of the heathens is not so deficient as many have imagined.  If their best opinions were duly selected and brought into one view, the only matter of surprise would be, how, with no other than the law written upon the heart, they had made such sublime discoveries.  It was principally in their theology, where the law written upon the heart could not reach, that the ancients were deficient.  They knew but little of the one true God.  They did not know that he was a Spirit, and that he was to be worshiped in spirit and in truth.  They were ignorant of his attributes.  They had learnt nothing of the true origin, nature, and condition of man, or of the scheme of creation and redemption.  These things were undoubtedly hidden from the eyes of the ancient philosophers.  And it was in knowledge of this kind chiefly, that their deficiency was apparent.  But how is this particular deficiency detrimental to youth, or how rather might it not be rendered useful to them in the way described?  What a sublime contrast does knowledge, as exhibited by revelation, afford to the ignorance of those times, and what joy and gratitude ought we not to feel in the comparison?  And this is the only use which can be made of their mythology?  For when we send youth to the classical authors, we send them to learn the languages, and this through a medium where the morality is both useful and respectable, but we do not send them, living where the blessings of revelation are enjoyed, to be instructed in religion.

[Footnote 54:  It must however be acknowledged, that, amidst beautiful sentiments, such as are indelicate are occasionally interspersed.  But the quakers might remedy this objection by procuring a new edition of the purest classics only, in which particular passages might be omitted.  They might also add new Latin notes, founded on Christian principles, where any ideas were found to be incorrect, and thus make Heathenism itself useful, as a literal teacher of a moral system.  The world, I believe, would be obliged to the Quakers for such an edition, and it would soon obtain in most of the schools of the kingdom.]

The principal argument against a philosophical education, which is the next subject for consideration, is, that men, who cultivate such studies, require often more proofs of things than can always be had, and that, if these are wanting, they suspend their belief.  And as this is true in philosophy, so it may be true in religion.  Hence persons accustomed to such pursuits, are likely to become sceptics or infidels.