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lowed no one having a piece of tobacco about his person to enter his stall. That horse was, I think, much more of a gentleman than those men who defile the floors of the cars and the sidewalks, with their filthy habits. Possess this demon of sense, and it serves you nobly. Be possessed by it, and you will sink to the deepest degradation.

The next demon I speak of is very good or very bad, according as we possess him, or he us. It is the Word, or

Language.

When a man possesses the gift of language, and can express thought, feeling, purpose, exactly, it is a great power. Such a man causes Truth, Love, Right, to become clear to himself and others. He forms the creed of a nation, an age, not only in theology, but in literature, art, science, morals, politics. But often it happens that the very excellence of expression becomes a trap and snare. killeth," says Paul; even the letter of the New Testament. It kills insight; it produces bigotry and cant; and we use words with no sense behind them. When we possess words, we are the apostles of Truth; when they possess us, we are the ministers of Cant.

"The letter

It is a good thing to have a belief and distinct opinions — and to be able to express them distinctly in words. It is well to form a creed in politics, in morals, in philosophy, in religion. While we possess our opinions the mind is strong, large, and calm - but when our opinions possess us, we are narrowed down, cribbed and confined, and become bigots.

Not religious people only are bigots - possessed by a creed; for I have known atheists and skeptics who were the fools of words always going round and round like a horse in a mill, in the same circle of expressions. Religious people are often possessed by their creed, and put it above goodness— above a holy life. If men say the same

things as themselves, use the same formulas, they are satisfied. Whether they believe the same things or not is of less consequence.

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The man who possesses his ideas is a thinker; the man who is possessed by them is a fanatic. Fanatics are not very common in the world, but we occasionally meet with them. These are they before whose imagination some notion, some opinion, has assumed such vast proportions, that it eclipses all other truths and beliefs. The man has become the slave of his idea, whatever it may be. His mind has lost all sense of perspective. His judgment is unbalanced - he can only see one side of a subject. If it be a religious idea which possesses him, all who do not accept it are infidels and miscreants, who ought to be extirpated by fire and sword. If he be in the majority, he persecutes if in the minority, he willingly offers himself to be persecuted. The thing he hates the most is moderation, which he calls indifference. But the same fanaticism appears in science, in art, in literature, in politics - wherever, in fact, men contend about opinions. Herbert Spencer has recently said that there is an anti-theological bias, which is as bigoted and angry as that of theology. Some men can never speak on any subject without throwing out some sneer against Christianity, the church, or religion. These are the fanatics of infidelity.

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Christians are often possessed by their creed, and become its slaves. Men of science are sometimes possessed in the same way, though I think not as often because they come into closer contact with the facts of nature, which cannot be twisted much by sophistry or put down by persecution. Men usually quarrel about opinions — not about facts. We get angry in defending our opinions. when we are not quite sure that we are right. Certainty takes away our excitement. If a man contends that two

and two are five, and not four, he does not make me angry; but if I am a Darwinian, and he opposes that hypothesis or vice versâ then I become excited.

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There is an absence of fanaticism and bigotry in the writings of the New Testament which seems to me to indicate the self-possession of the writers. They controlled this demon of thought they were not controlled by it. An English poet has described this equanimity of mind, when he says of a certain person that he had

"An equal nature, and an ample soul,
Rock bound and fortified against the assaults
Of momentary passion, but beneath

Built on a surging, subterranean fire,

Which stirred and lifted him to great attempts."

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The Apostle Paul was a man whose whole nature rested on this "surging, subterranean fire." What immense ardor of conviction! What strength of faith in his ideas! But he possessed them he was not possessed by them. "The spirit of the prophet," said he, "is subject to the prophet." Therefore, he was always clear and confident in his own mind · he saw his way he was able to balance opposing truths. Though he was the theologian among apostles, he laid no undue stress on theology he accepted all his own opinions as not absolute, but relativeas only provisional till something better came. "We know in part, and teach in part," says he, "but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away." Faith in Christ is the key to his system corner-stone; nevertheless he says, that Love is greater than Faith.

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Every young man who reads this book unless he be a clergyman or a divinity student, is hoping to be rich

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some time or other. That is right. Wealth is a good thing. We sometimes hear the Bible quoted as though it said that money is the root of all evil. This is a misquotation - what it says is that the love of money is the root of all evil. There is nothing wrong about the wish to be rich - as long as it does not become an absorbing passion. In fact, a very large part of our civilization comes from the effort to make money. Without this motive we should sink back into barbarism. Some persons contend that no one ought to receive interest for the use of money - they denounce taking of interest as wrong. But what would be the result of forbidding interest to be taken? The result would be that men would hoard their money— dig a hole in the ground, and bury it, as they do in Asia. But now they lend it, for six, ten, twelve per cent, to persons who can put it into their business, and make twenty, forty, a hundred per cent, out of it. Men would not pay interest on money if they did not make more out of it than they pay — and those who deal with them are also profited, or they would not deal with them. I, therefore, do not object to money-making. The effort to accumulate a fortune.is in itself an education. It develops prudence, foresight accuracy, knowledge of things. Money is a demon, a great motive power, a mighty influence for good or evil. If we possess it, it does us good — if we allow it to possess us, it does us harm.

How many men there are in our community, who consider themselves to possess property, who are, in fact, possessed by it! What terrible illustrations we have had, in the last few years, of high-minded, honorable men, brought low by this mistake! They were in such a hurry to get rich, they could not wait. What Credit-Mobilier transactions what Salary-Grabs in Congress-what bribing of Legislatures — what Rings to plunder municipalities

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what defalcations of officers in banks, and of treasurers of trust companies. Some of these men I have known men who seemed to have died weighed down by remorse and shame. They were good men when I knew them they were not so bad men as many others even when they fell into these crimes; but they allowed themselves to be possessed by their money, instead of possessing it— that was all.

What is the difference between a scholar and a pedant, but that the scholar possesses his knowledge, the pedant is possessed by it? The scholar knows what he knows, and what he knows it for. He is able to use his knowledge, he has it at command. The pedant has a head filled with ill-assorted, ill-arranged learning, useless to himself and to others.

I once knew a man who spent his life in tracing our English Bible to its sources in all previous translations. He gathered a library of books, all bearing on this subject. He professed to be writing a history of the English Bible, and sent out subscription papers to publish it. He could think of nothing else, talk of nothing else. It possessed him entirely. If he met you, he would begin, without a preamble, and talk about Beza, the Bishop's Bible, Coverdale's translation, Tyndall, and the like. When he died, they searched for his MSS. to print it, and found that he had never written a word of it. He was possessed by his

knowledge he did not possess it.

Some teachers take possession of their disciples, and run them into the mould of their own thought. The scholar repeats, like a parrot, the opinions of his teacher. He is possessed by his teacher. But the wise and truly great teacher never does this; he rouses the independent faculties of the pulpit - he awakens all his own powers he gives him to himself.

only cramming.

This is education the other is

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