senses to observe accurately; the memory to register carefully and recall readily; the reason to compare, reflect, and judge. without partiality or passion. It is to infuse into the soul a principle of enduring activity and curiosity, such that it shall ever be awake in quest of light, never counting itself to have apprehended, but pressing continually forward towards higher truths and a larger knowledge. Again, man begins life without virtue. He has propensities that urge him to self-gratification, affections that impel him to gratify others, and moral instincts that incline him to duty. But, left to himself and without culture, his propensities predominate; the affections spend themselves in capricious acts of kindness or charity; and the moral instincts raise, without effect, their solemn and monitory voice. It is the office of moral education to harmonize these contending and irregular powers, by restoring conscience to its rightful authority, and by replacing unreflecting impulses with fixed and enlightened principles. It is its business to cultivate habits which make man master of himself, and which enable him, even when pressed by fierce temptation, to prefer loss, disgrace, and death itself, before dishonor. "The great_principle and foundation of all virtue," says Locke, "lies in this—that a man is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best, though the appetite lean the other way." Again, man begins life without taste. Through his senses, he is early attracted and charmed by what he terms beautiful. As he advances in years, these impressions, made by outward objects, blend themselves with remembrances of the past, and with creations of the mind itself. The result is seen in conceptions which bear away the soul from the imperfections and trials of actual life, to a world of imagined purity, beauty, and bliss. L Now, in the untutored mind, these conceptions are rude and often uncouth. It is the province of education to give them form and symmetry, to teach the true difference between beauty and deformity, to inspire a love for simple excellence in literature and art, as well as a taste for the beauties and sublimites of nature, and, finally, to awaken a profound reverence for moral grandeur, and thus kindle aspirations after glory, honor, and immortality. BISHOP POTTER 1977 71. The Rich Man and the Beggar. ANOTHER feature in the ways of God, That wondrous seemed, and made some men complain, He spread his ample boughs; air, earth, and sea, To please him mihistered, and vied among L Watching the moving of his rising thoughts His palace rose and kissed the gorgeous clouds; In all its zigzag appetites, gorged full, The man new wants and new expenses planned, And planned for him new modes of folly wild; Did Providence his bounties daily shower. Turn now thy eye, and look on poverty; No limbs to walk; no home, no house, no friend > See how his hand, if any hand he has, As comes the traveller's foot; and hear his groan, The want that gnaws within; severely now And noisome wounds; his bones, of racking pans. Could fabricate, then made this meagre man. This great disparity of outward things Taught many lessons; but this taught in chief, That man should none, on goods of worldly kind: Of migratory, ever-changing sort; And further taught, that in the soul alone, The thinking, reasonable, willing soul, God placed the total excellence of man, And meant him evermore to seek it there. 19* POLLOK 72. The Simple Man and the Wise Man BUT stranger still the distribution seemed Of intellect; though fewer here complained, The name his mother called him by he scarce He thought the devil in disguise, and fled But thought the visual line, that girt him round, The world's extreme; and thought the silver moon, That nightly o'er him led her virgin host, No broader than his father's shield. He lived Lived where his father lived - died where he died; Lived happy, died happy, and was saved. Be not surprised. He loved and served his God. There was another, large of understanding, Of memory infinite, of judgment deep; |