escape from the ephemeral self by renouncing what is petty, partial, apparent, and transitory, that the true self may unfold in the world of the permanent, of things which have an aptitude for perpetuity; but the philosopher's efforts are intellectual and moral, while the Christian's source of strength is the love which is enrooted in divine faith.

"The brief precept," says St. Augustine, "is given there once for all,—Love, and do what thou wilt. If thou art silent, be silent for love; if thou speakest, speak for love; if thou correctest, correct for love; if thou sparest, spare for love. The root of love is within, and from it only good can come." Life springs from love, and love is its being, aim, and end. Each soul is born of souls yearning that he be born, and he lives only so far as he leaves himself and becomes through love part of the life of God and the race of man.

Primordial matter, with which the physicists start, is twin brother of nothing. In every conceivable hypothesis, we assume either that nothing is the cause of something, or that from the beginning there was something or some one who is all the universe may become. If truth and love and goodness are of the essence of the highest life evolved in nature, they are of the essence of that by which nature exists and energizes. If reason is valid at all, it avails as an immovable foundation for faith in God and in man's kinship with him. The larger the world we live in, the greater the opportunities for self-education. He who knows friends and foes, who is commended and found fault with, who tastes the delights of home and breathes the air of strange lands, who is followed and opposed, who triumphs and suffers defeat, who contends with many and is left alone, who dwells with his own thoughts and in the company of the great minds of all time,—necessarily gains wisdom and power, and learns to feel himself a man.

Science springs from man's yearning for truth; art, from his yearning for beauty; religion, from his yearning for love: and as truth, beauty, and love are a harmony, so are science, art, and religion; and if conflicts arise, they are the results of ignorance and passion. The charm of faith, hope, and love, of knowledge, beauty, and religion, lies in their power to open life's prison, thus permitting the soul to escape to commune with the Infinite and Eternal, with the boundless mysterious world of being which forever draws us on and forever eludes our grasp. The higher the man, the more urgent this need of self-escape.

We look upon lifelong imprisonment of the body as among the greatest of evils, but that the mind should be suffered to languish in the dungeon of ignorance, error, and prejudice, seems comparatively a slight thing. Thy whole business, as a rational being, is to know and follow truth,—with gratitude and joy if possible, but, in any case, with courage and resignation. Mind maketh man; and the most money and place can do, is to make millionnaires and titularies.

The Alpine guides, who lead travellers through the sublimest scenery in the world, are as insensible to its grandeur as the stocks they grasp; and we nearly all are as indifferent as these drudges to Nature's divine spectacle, with its starlit heavens, its risings and settings of sun and moon, its storms and calms, its changes of season, its clouds and snows and breath of many-tinted flowers, its children's faces, and plumage and songs of birds.

As we judge of many things by samples, a glance may suffice to show the worthlessness of a book, but the value of one that is genuine is not quickly perceived, for it reveals itself the more the oftener it is read and pondered. There is not a more certain, a purer, or a more delightful source of contentment and independence than a taste for the best literature. In the midst of occupations and cares of whatever kind it enables us to look forward to the hour when the noblest minds and most generous hearts shall welcome us to their company to be entertained with great thoughts rightly uttered and with information concerning whatever is of interest to man.

In every home the best works of the great poets, historians, philosophers, orators, and story-writers should lie within reach of the young, who should be permitted, not urged, to read them. We may know a man by the company he keeps; we may know him better still by the books he loves: and if he loves none, he is not worth knowing.

Matthew Arnold praises culture for "its inexhaustible indulgence, its consideration of circumstances, its severe judgment of actions joined to its merciful judgment of persons."

When we have learned to love work, to love honest work, work well done, excellently well done, we have within ourselves the most fruitful principle of education.

Who shall speak ill of bodily health and vigor? Herbert Spencer affirms that it is man's first duty to be a good animal. But since we cannot all be athletes or be well even, let us not refuse to find consolation in the fact that much of what is greatest, whether in the world of thought or action, has been wrought by mighty souls in feeble and suffering bodies; and since men gladly risk health and life to acquire gold, shall we not be willing, if need be, to be "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," if so we may attain to truth and love?

Great things are accomplished only by concentration. What we ourselves think, love, and do, until it becomes a habit, is the form and substance of our life.

To live in the company of those who have or seek culture is to breathe the vital air of mental health and vigor.

The scientific investigator gives his whole attention to the facts before him; but the discipline of close observation, however favorable it may be to accuracy, weakens capacity for wide and profound views. On the other hand, the speculative thinker is apt to grow heedless or oblivious of facts. Hence a minute observer is seldom a great philosopher, a great philosopher rarely a careful observer.

"Employment," says Ruskin, "is the half, and the primal half of education, for it forms the habits of body and mind, and these are the constitution of man." Tell me at and in what thou workest, and I will tell thee what thou art. The secret of education lies in the words of Christ,—He that hath eyes to see, let him see; he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The soul must flow through the channels of the senses until it meets the universe and clothes it with the beauty and meaning which reveal God.

When I think of all the truth which still remains for me to learn, of all the good I yet may do, of all the friends I still may serve, of all the beauty I may see, life seems as fresh and fair, as full of promise, as is to loving souls the dawn of their bridal day. Animals, children, savages, the thoughtless and frivolous, live in the present alone; they consequently lead a narrow, ephemeral, and superficial existence. They strike no deep roots into the past, they forebode no divine future, they enter not behind the veil where the soul finds ever-during truth and power.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."

Whatever sets the mind in motion may lead us to secret worlds, though it be a falling apple, as with Newton, or the swing of the pendulum, as with Galileo, or a boy's kite, as with Franklin, or throwing pebbles into the water, as with Turner. Watt sat musing by the fire, and noticed the rise and fall of the lid of the boiling kettle, and the steam engine, like a vision from unknown spheres, rose before his imagination. A child, carelessly playing with the glasses that lay on the table of a spectacle-maker, gave the clew to the invention of the telescope. The pestle, flying from the hand of Schwarz, told him he had found the explosive which has transformed the world. Drifting plants, of a strange species, whispered to Columbus of a continent that lay across the Atlantic. Patient observation and work are the mightiest conquerors.

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