found, 'tis the subject preaches itself, or pur interest the chief thing which gives the concernment; and that it was not so much the force of eloquence as the strong lungs of the missionary which shook us, and gave us those motions. In short, the preacher is not furnished as the lawyer with matters of fact, always new, with different events and unheard of adventures; his business is not to start doubtful questions, to improve probable conjectures; all which subjects elevate the genius, give force and compass, and do not so much put a constraint on eloquence as fix and direct it. He must, on the contrary, draw his discourse from a spring common to all. If he deserts his commonplaces he ceases to be popular; he is either too abstracted, or he declaims, he no longer preaches the gospel; all he has occasion for is holy simplicity, but that he must gain; a talent rare and above the reach of ordinary men. The genius, fancy, learning, and memory which they have, are so far from helping that they often hinder the attaining it. * * "The profession of the lawyer is laborious, toilsome, and requires in the person who undertakes it, a rich fund and stock of his own; he is not like the preacher provided with a number of harangues composed at leisure, got by heart and repeated with authority, without contradiction, and which being altered a lit tle here and there, do him service and credit more than once. His pleadings are grave, spoke before those judges who may command him silence, and against adversaries who are sure to interrupt him; he is obliged to be sharp and ready in his replies. In one and the same day he pleads in several courts, and about different matters; his house neither af fords him shelter nor rest; 'tis open to all who come to perplex him with their difficult and doubtful cases; he is not put to bed, rubbed down, nor supported with cordials; his chamber is not a rendezvous for a concourse of people of all qualities and sexes, to congratulate him upon the beauty and politeness of his language. All the repose he has after a long discourse is immediately to set to work upon writing a still longer; he only varies his fatigues. I may venture to say, he is in his kind, what the first Apostolic men were in theirs. "Having thus distinguished the eloquence of the bar from the profession of the lawyer, and the eloquence of the pulpit from the office of the preacher, it will appear, I believe, that it is easier to preach than to plead, but more difficult to preach well than to plead well. "A preacher, methinks, ought in every one of his sermons, to make choice of one principal truth, whether it be to move terror or yield instruction, to handle that alone largely and fully, omitting all those foreign divisions and subdivisions which are so intricate and perplexed. I would not have him pre-suppose a thing really false, which is, that the great or the geuteel men understand the religion they profess, and so be afraid to instruct persons of their wit and breeding in their catechism; let him employ the long time others are composing a set, formal discourse, in making, that the turn and expressions may, of course, flow easily from him. Let him, after necessary preparation, yield himself up to his own genius, and to the emotions with which a great subject will inspire him; let him spare those prodigious efforts of memory which look more like reciting for a wager than anything serious, and which_destroy all graceful action; let him, on the contrary, by a noble enthusiasm dart conviction into the soul and alarm the conscience; let him, in fine, touch the hearts of his hearers with another fear than that of see ing him make some blunder or halt in his sermon. "Let not him who is not yet arrived to such perfection, as to forget himself in the dispensation of the holy word; let not him, I say, be discouraged by the austere rules prescribed him, as if they robbed him of the means of showing his genius and attaining the honors to which he aspires. What greater or more noble talent can there be than to preach like an Apostle, or which deserves a bishoprick better? Was Fenelon unworthy of that dignity? Was it possible he should have escaped his Prince's choice, but for another choice?" To descend from the epigram of Labruyère to plain prose and critical commentary. The style of sermons cannot be too plain and simple, in general. The text is perfectly clear and earnest. Strength and seriousness are the chief qualities. Let it be rather a labored plainness than a labored elegance. The greatest truths, like the richest gems, show best plain set. The best character, for a writer of sermons, is Ben Jonson's character of Cartwright, the Dramatist, who was also a Preacher. "He, my son Cartwright, writes all like a man." Joined to this manly sense let there be a liberal spirit of humanity, a sympathy with men as men; compassion and fellow-feeling. Let sauvity modify the rigor of your doctrines, and let a Christian feeling overspread your whole spirit. Thus we would address the preacher. Action and gesture, when natural, are always right-when artificial, very seldom. To the youthful student we would further say, the old Divines afford a good school, but a knowledge of human nature is better. Still, of the old Divines drink your fill-of wisdom, and fancy, and piety, and acute knowledge, and ability of every kind. What pictures, and fair conceits, and rich harmonies, in Taylor! what ingenious thoughts, so fine, so delicate, in Donne ! what massy arguments in Barrow and Sherlock; and he that reads the contemporaries of these old masters, will confess them to have written as with a crisped pen. A SONG OF THE PAST. BY R. S. S. ANDROS. Он, pleasant is their memory, those forest-walks of ours, Those walks amid the fields and woods, in search of pleasant flowers; Those lone communings with the earth, with rocks, and trees, and streams, Till o'er our spirits came a spell like music heard in dreams. Dost mind thee of that pleasant morn, that bright, bright morn in May, When down the lane, and o'er the bridge, we took our happy way? The sweet sky smiled to see its face reflected in the brook, And violets and daisies peeped out from every nook. The robin warbled by our path, the blackbird sang around, Oh happy morn! it shines again! I see the mossy stone, And the pleasant flowers seem springing about my feet as then. And still do I remeriber how weary were our hearts, Oh, pleasant is their memory, those forest-walks of ours, Those walks amid the fields and woods in search of pleasant flowers; EDUCATION. (Concluded from our Number for May.) BUT this unfitness and unseasonable- leaves us without either knowledge or ness of studies are not our worst sins. docility. Common as it is to overtax the mind by severity, it is, if possible, still more common to overwhelm it by multiplicity of studies. Great evil is undoubtedly resulting to education from the number and variety of subjects that solicit the student's attention. Since the beginning of the present intellectual era, sciences have multiplied so much, that we may now say of them what was once said of books. There have come to be so many things of which we think we must learn a little, that we can afford time to learn but a little of anything. Streams for us to fish in have got so abundant, that we go chasing from one to another, contenting ourselves with a few " glorious nibbles" in each, but catching nothing. We seem, often, to think it enough, to place ourselves where the words of knowledge may visit the ear, and form themselves in the memory, without the labor of thought. It is thus that we acquire a sort of top-of-the-tongue knowledge, and the language of intelligence comes to drop from our mouths as fluently, and almost as thoughtlessly, as words drop from the mouth of a parrot. We do not so much learn to think, as to make others believe we have thought, by smattering and smuggling the thoughts of others. Among us practical men, a certain stump or drawingroom flippancy, or counting-house dexterity, is, for most part, the beau-ideal of intelligence. This may, indeed, be a good enough way to develope the tongue; and such knowledge may be justly called a vox et preterea nihil: but we should recollect, that if the tongue grow too large it will push out the brains. He who would stub and totter slowly along beneath a full head, can, of course, hop, and skip, and dance to admiration beneath an empty one. To say this is not education is not enough: it unfits us for education: for it takes away the shame of ignorance, without removing the ignorance itself, and It is curious to observe how much false philosophy, as well as practical error, there is on this subject. People not only act, but speak as if each study were exercise but for a single faculty of the mind; they therefore huddle together as many studies as they can reckon up different susceptibilities. It requires but a moment's reflection to see that the very reverse of this is the true course; for the business of education is, to form the mind, not to fill it; -not to accumulate stores, but to build up a capacity. Its whole process, therefore, may be expressed in two words, development and discipline. To unfold, and deepen, and strengthen the faculties, is the first and last of its duty; and it is by concentration, not by dispersion of them, that this is to be done. Non multa, sed multum, is, undoubtedly, the best maxim that was ever given for a student; for it is not how many things we learn something about, but how much we learn about one thing, that determines our real progress. To exercise all the faculties on one subject is infinitely better than to exercise one of the faculties on all subjects, for the latter only tends to mar that harmony and integrity of mind from which true wisdom springs. Surely, too, everybody must know that when we attempt to look over many things, we cannot look into, or look through, any of them. In the words of Bishop Taylor, a mind entertained with several objects is intent upon neither, and, therefore, profits not. One subject thoroughly understood-exhausted-is far better than fifty, or five hundred, subjects merely glanced at and guessed at; for the habit of glancing and guessing thus formed, casts a blight on whatever promise there may have been of something better. Neatness, precision and depth of thought, in a very limited sphere, involve such a development and discipline of mind as will best prepare us for a due understanding of what ever subject may come before us. Moreover, there is no field so narrow but that it has an infinite extension upwards; and he who piles thought upon thought, within a very small circle, will of course build much higher and much firmer than he who scatters himself and his efforts over all creation. To disperse the faculties, then, over a multitude of studies, is to dissipate, not discipline the mind; a course that tends only to make scatter-brains and mountebanks and blue-stockings. The long pull, and strong pull, and pull altogether, of all the powers, is what brings success and triumph. It is at the focus and convergence of all the faculties that their power becomes effectual, so that the object kindles and blazes up into the light of true intelligence. Separate any one of the elementary rays from the solar combination, and there is no light about it, but only darkness and discoloration. Our first business, then, plainly is, to fix upon some subject that will give due exercise to all the faculites as soon and as fast as they may be developed, and then to bring them all to bear upon it, so as not merely to see it, but to see into it, and see through it-to separate it into its parts, and reproduce it as a whole. It would not be unsafe to assert, that generally, and within very moderate limits, the quality of an education will be in inverse proportion to the quantity of studies pursued. In the best European institutions, where education is now carried to greater perfection, perhaps, than at any other place or time whose voice has reached us, young men spend the best part of seven or eight years on three studies; while, among us democrats, lads and misses, too green to be trusted away from home, must despatch three times as many studies in about one-third of the time. Parents have boasted to us, that their sons, before the age of twelve, had read through more Latin books than we ever read in. Upon inquiry, however, we found they always studied with translations. What astonishing creatures mankind have become by crossing the Atlantic Ocean! If they go as much farther west, matters will doubtless be completely reversed, and men will be wisest at birth. Of the teachers who lack the power to detect, or the principle to forbid, such practices, of course nothing is to be said. VOL. XVII.-NO. LXXXV. Doubtless they labor for wages, and are too philanthropic to peril their own interest by holding back their pupils. So great, indeed, and so general is this rage for quickness and universality of scholarship, that it has deeply vitiated our means of education. Almost all our popular text-books are purposely made superficial, to meet our unnatural and extravagant demands. The utmost efforts are constantly put forth to divest them of that wholesome severity which makes it impossible to proceed in them without insight and understanding. They are not so much aids and stimulants to thought as substitutes for it. It is doubtless grateful to our indolence, to think that knowledge is made easy; but we ought to reflect that when made too easy, it ceases to be knowledge: and so much has been done of late to make knowledge easy, that it is truly high time something were done to make it hard; for nothing can be vainer than the notion that it may be had without work. As teachers, we have, ourselves, been plagued with books so outrageously easy, that they could not possibly be understood. Do we not know how much easier it is to grasp a club, than a grain of silk? and that if we attenuate things into spider's web, they become so very easy as to be invisible? If we wish to feed the mind, we had best give it something big enough and hard enough to masticate. Nature, (and she is the best teacher and textbook we know of) nowhere attempts to instruct us with perfectly simple substances. All her works are highly complex; nay, they are instructive chiefly in virtue of their complexity: and a mind at all conversant with them, especially if it be in any degree genial in its structure and movements, is rather blown out than fed by perfect simplicity of object. Even the air we breathe is a compound substance; analyze it into its constituents, and it will kill us. How many teachers have felt themselves encumbered with the help of our popular text-books, it is, of course, impossible to tell; that some have, there is no sort of doubt. For students will not, perhaps cannot, stop to understand a thing, when they can recite through the whole without understanding it. It is like attempting to chew water; we cannot choose but swallow it without grinding; and if we try to chew it, it runs either out of our mouth or down our throat. We speak with the more positiveness on this subject, because we speak from bitter experience. The truth is, we may as well despair at once of ever seeing a railroad to the land of knowledge; and while there are so many railroads which seem to lead there, students will hardly endure to trudge slowly and painfully thither on their own feet, as mankind always have done, and always must do. It is only of its own free, vital activity, that the mind can be either enriched or invigorated; and our case is nearly hopeless when the natural stimulants to effort are turned into narcotics. All true knowledge implies growth and development of mind; and that sort of knowledge which can be taught by book or voice, and passively received into the memory, is as worthless as it is easy. Even the contents of memory must be taken up and reproduced by the free activity of higher powers before they deserve the name of knowledge; for it is just as impossible that another should think for us as that another should digest for us; and if our food be digested before we eat it, it will not feed us at all, but only starve us to death. Of our so much puffed and boasted facilities of education, we may safely say, that instead of making knowledge easy, they are only making students indolent. Intellectually and morally we are all of us born into a wilderness, where each has to cut and pave his own road. To acquire strength, and skill and courage for this task, is, indeed, our chief errand here. Of course others can lend en couragement and guidance to our efforts; but they can no more supersede them, than they can do our eating and sleeping for us. The only true course, therefore, for students, is, first, to do one thing; to do it. They will thereby gain strength and skill to do many things, so that they will really do more things, within a reasonable length of time, by first perfecting one, than by doing at a multitude at once and thus perfecting none. The purpose of education is, universality of mind, not universality of acquirement; the former is practicable, the latter is not even possible and universality of mind comes rather by singleness than by multiplicity of subjects. A Burke puts his whole being into every paragraph he utters; a Parr puts but a fraction of his being into a cart-load of volumes; and a para graph of the former is worth a volume of the latter. If a waste of times and means were the worst result of this course, it would be comparatively harmless. But such is by no means the case. For, as we have already said, it takes away docility without giving knowledge, and drives out no-understanding to make room for mis-understanding. In other words, it leaves people in a sort of intellectual half-way house, without power either to finish their journey or to return home. Botching and blundering could be borne much better, if they did not tend to make confirmed blotchers and blunderers. The marring of the work were a trifling matter, if it did not mar the workmen. Ignorance is at least silent, but misknowledge is always voluble, and very honestly thinks it is showing its wealth when only exposing its poverty; that is, it makes people conspicuous the wrong way. It hath been well said, that “a little learning is a dangerous thing;" for it takes men away from the light of nature without delivering them over to the light of reason, and leaves them in a state of spiritual betweenity, with too much pride to walk, and too little strength to fly. The darkness of mere instinct is obviously better than the twilight of half-knowledge: since the former, along with realities, hides the ghosts and goblins, and bug-bears, and humbugs with which such twilight peoples them.— There are, it is said, three classes of people in this country: a large class in total darkness; a still larger class in twilight; and a small class in daylight. Those in total darkness of course do not see the humbugs amongst us at all; those in daylight see through them, and therefore despise them; those in twilight see them, and are marvellously delighted with them. But this is not all. In this age of Fastidious Feeble-wits, surely all must know what Bellesletterism, or literary Brummelism is. The process, however, by which it is generated is not so well known, and we have been trying to explain it. Like its twin sister, Fashion, it is "gentility running away from vulgarity, and afraid of being overtaken by it: a sure sign that they are not far asunder." As fashion is the art of wearing clothes purely on their own account, so bellesletterism is the art of speaking merely for the sake of speaking. The dandiprat and the tickle |