is permitted to look down on earth and see the effects he has left behind him, however zealously he may work in the immortal land, can he work otherwise than sadly and humbly, when he sees children, and children's companions, and their children, and children's children carrying into life the evil which he encouraged-defiling life with sin, and darkening it with misery? Who can help believing that, as a picture of his life rises in his memory, and he sees side by side with it the fair image of what it might have been, the happiness he might have caused, the excellence he might have encouraged around him, how much better and brighter he might have made one spot of this world, he will sadly feel, even in the blessed land, that he has lost something which not even heaven or eternity can give him again? May it make him gird himself with more self-resignation to an eternity of work for God, knowing that only in the sacrifice of the whole being to goodness can he escape the memory of his vile service of evil.

PART III.

NOTES OF LESSONS

GIVEN IN THE TEMPLE TO PUPIL TEACHERS AND SENIOR CLASSES, ON THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CULTURE.

CHAPTER XIII.

LESSONS IN THE COURTS OF HUMANITY,

PREPARATORY TO BUILDING.

LESSON I.

IDEA OF CULTURE, THREE CANONS OF TEACHING.

I SCARCELY need remind you of what you have so often heard,—that the building in which we are now assembled is taken by us as a symbol of the work itself, which we carry on within its walls. We come here to labour with one another at the noble task of CULTURE, or MENTAL IMPROVEMENT; and we endeavour to represent to ourselves the grandeur, dignity, and importance of this work, by comparing it to the work of erecting a costly and magnificent temple. This way of thinking fits us to go on and take a still higher symbol of our aim, even this great temple of the universe itself. The work of culture, then, at last, is glorified in our conception by becoming like the august work of creation, or building up in the mind a world of beauty, truth, and grandeur. Yet we have not only to build the temple or world of thought, we have also to fill it with a noble, rich, and beautiful life.

We divide the work of culture into two heads, Instruction and Education. In instruction, we consider the mind as so much clear ground or space, where, by our teachings, we may in-struct-i. e., build in or furnish-the thoughts which, as

living and precious stones, form the walls and materials of the great temple or world of the intellect. In education, we consider the mind as peopled by capacities, which, like builders, are ready to do the work of building; and our task is to give them the highest fitness for their functions,-to e-duc-ate, or draw forth, all their strength, activity, and skill, by wise and vigorous exercise. In education, we also go higher than this, we consider the mind as peopled by many noble feelings the aesthetic (or intellectual), the benevolent, the holy, and the religious-which it is also our work to draw out, so that their voices, like those of holy priests and prophets, resounding through our temple, shall fill it with life and harmony.

Three grand canons, which are to rule all our teachings, grow out of this our conception of culture. First, we must build or instruct soundly and harmoniously. Secondly, we must draw forth, or educate, the capacities (or builders). Thirdly, we must draw forth, or educate, the higher feelings (the priests and prophets within).

First. We must build soundly and harmoniously, and so the thoughts of which our edifice consists must be true and sound. But for this there needs in the teacher's mind an infinite reverence for perfect truth. It is truth alone that leads on to other truth, and fits the mind to receive it. One clear fundamental truth given may suggest a world of truth, and one fundamental error may make the whole future thought in some degree false and useless. A building of erroneous thoughts will not bear the weight of real truth, and, therefore, will not permit the mind to receive it when it comes. And then, in itself, it has none of the beauty, grandeur, or use of truth, and cannot raise in the mind those noble feelings which truth awakens. And in order that the building of knowledge may be perfect and solid, the truths taught must also be adapted one to the other. The teacher should constantly be asking himself, in teaching a subject→→→ What ideas of this subject can I give that will go deepest down into it, and afford a firm foundation for the greatest number of other ideas to follow? What view can I present that is at the bottom of all that I want to teach, and leads on most naturally to its conception? Suppose, for example, he has to teach syntax. By such inquiries he finds that its most fundamental idea is, that there exists in a sentence a connection

between words. This idea being apprehended, the next thought is What are the principal sorts of these connections? And the mind passes on most naturally to understand that they are the connections existing between the ground word (noun) and marking word (adjective),-between one or both of these and the belief word (verb),-between the marking word and submarking word (adverb),-between relation words (prepositions) and nouns, between herald words (conjunctions) and sentences. Then rises the clear conception of the true nature of nouns, adjectives, verbs, &c., as words standing in these relations. Next all the rules of syntax flow out of this right conception of the relations of words. (See the lessons on Grammar.) And we must aim after this soundness and harmoniousness from the very commencement. It is not very extensive knowledge that we can communicate in early teaching; but this much we may do we may trace the ground plan of the future edifice,-give some idea of the whole great structure of knowledge, which, we must impress upon the mind, it is part of the work of all life to build up; and we may lay some of the granite blocks of the foundations,-give correct fundamental ideas of some of the various branches of knowledgesuch deep-reaching and wide-supporting ideas as, in an active and disciplined mind, shall lead on, by an elective attraction, to other truths. Thus we shall prevent the mind for ever from resting in conceited or contented ignorance; we shall provide it with a conception of what it has to do, and how to do it; we shall make it a necessity of the mind not only to go on, but to analyze and digest what it acquires,-to compare it with its fundamental notions, and arrange it into a elear and harmonious system. As in ordinary architecture, so it is in mind-building,-when the ground plan is once accurately marked out and the firm foundations laid, then every stone, that is before hewn and marked, may be laid by the simplest builder in its appropriate place. Hence the following lessons will have for their principal object-so far as instruction is concerned-to prepare the mind for future self-education, by marking out the ground plan and laying the ultimate foundations of knowledge.

But, secondly, we must so conduct our teachings that they shall discipline those faculties of the mind which are themselves the true thought-builders. This has been so often explained, that I shall at present only insist especially again

that while we take the utmost care that all ideas communicated be as rigorously and logically true as possible, we should add to them the interest, the life, aud the vividness with which the imagination is capable of investing them.

Thirdly, we must so conduct our teachings as to cause them to awaken the higher emotions (the priests and prophets) of the temple. First, the asthetic feelings-the love of truth, the admiration for what is beautiful, the wonder at what is mysterious, the delight to rest in awe upon all that is grand— are to be awakened, by presenting knowledge in its own true and native aspect, full of truth, beauty, mystery, and grandeur. And none but the teacher who has a kind of worship for knowledge, from beholding it in this aspect, can thus present it.

The teacher will be able to make his instructions the means of quickening the moral and religious feelings, if he endeavour to look out on life and nature-the facts of which he has to teach-in the spirit of Jesus, and find them full of moral and religious meaning. Much is said and written in the present day about the possibility and desirability of combining moral and religious with secular teaching. The difficulty which others are discussing, we are, we think, quietly solving here, and simply by carrying into practice the moral and religious view of the universe, and showing our pupils those moral and religious aspects of every secular subject which it bears in our own mind, and which we believe most naturally belong to it. In our view, secular teaching cannot naturally, and without presenting knowledge untruthfully-and, indeed, philosophically speaking, atheistically-be separated from moral and religious teaching. All truth is moral and religious in its relations; and if you present it without noticing these relations, you deprive it of its native glory and highest meaning. To fit himself for his office, then, the teacher must not only consecrate himself to the intellectual, but still more to the moral and religious interpretations of life and nature. We shall endeavour to show, hereafter, how both these interpretations may be studied.

To awaken the moral feelings, then, let us now say, the teacher must endeavour to find what moral truths, analogies, or illustrations there are in the subject which he is teaching. If he has deeply and earnestly entered into the inner life, the whole outward universe will seem to him a