power and usefulness by literary pursuits. To minister to the wants of the mind, is no mean calling in any sphere of action, to do so effectually, is one of the most difficult of attainments. To wield our mother tongue with the hand of a master, is not the work of a day, a month, or a year, and requires a diligence and a perseverance not inferior to that which is necessary to attain eminence in any profession. It is the slow result of perpetual practice, combined with the study of the best models of composition in all languages and of all times. Above all, a familiarity with the Greek compels us to explore all the riches of our own language, to measure its copiousness, its precision, its majesty, and its force. To moderate the stateliness of classical composition, a frequent recurrence to the early English dramatists will be found the most efficacious expedient. Through them the English muse spoke her first, untaught and bewitching accents of nature and truth. The combination of these two models of composition from ancient and modern times, is adding the smile and motion of the Graces to the majestic beauty of Minerva;—or rather it is as if, at the touch of Jove, the statue of that goddess of wisdom were to step from her pedestal, changed from her marble stillness to a living form, mantling with warm blood, and thrilling with sensibility. Gentlemen of the Literary Societies of Mar shall College, I have given you a few plain and practical ideas upon the appropriate education, and the peculiar duties and responsibilities, of professional men in America. I have shown you that they occupy a station more commanding and influential than any other class. On them devolves the power widely to bless, to adorn and elevate society, or as widely to wrong, corrupt, and degrade it. Whatever may be the course that others may take, you, I hope, will always be found on the side of sound morality, thorough education, and pure patriotism; and in whatever profession you may be called to serve your country, I trust that you will never forget the academic shades in which you have been nurtured, nor lose the conviction that you are bound by your early vows, to add the accomplishments of the scholar to the solid virtues of the Christian, the citizen, and the man. 14 RISE AND PRINCIPLES OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.* THE time is coming, it is to be hoped, when a more philosophical, as well as a more just and charitable view will be taken, of the causes and consequences of the different sects which, from time to time, have sprung up in the Christian church. They are too often considered as heresies, that is, divisions arising from a bad and perverse spirit, and not the results aimed at by honest minds, earnestly and fearlessly seeking for truth. It is a much more charitable, and, we believe, a truer view to take of them, to consider them as the consequence of the comprehensive nature of truth, and the limited capacities of the human intellect, together with the almost endless relations of Christian duty, and the consequent failure of any one man, or any class of men, to arrive at, or express the fulness and perfection of the Christian character. Minds arise, from time to time, of deeper penetration and wider grasp * An essay written and published 1843. than is conferred upon the general mass of mankind; these discover, what has escaped the observation of their predecessors and cotemporaries, that the different parts of the Christian system have not been proportionally developed. Some truths having been made prominent, whilst others perhaps have been altogether overlooked. Some parts of the Christian life have been too much insisted on, while others have been totally neglected. Or corruptions in doctrine and abuses in practice have crept, unawares, into the Christian world, which, through the force of habit, no one perceives, any more than those who, accustomed from birth to breathe an infected atmosphere or noxious vapors by which they are surrounded, are sensible of the condition of the air around them. An honest and fearless mind, which has discovered some doctrine exaggerated or perverted, or some principle overlooked-some minor duty made too conspicuous, while others more important are altogether neglected or despised, feels called upon to remonstrate,-to testify against error and abuse, and to endeavor to bring about a better state of things. But he necessarily meets with opposition, for he can not at once bring all to see things in the same light that he does. Yet if he be active and persevering, and there be intrinsic value in his discovery, he naturally persuades many to coincide with him in RISE AND PRINCIPLES OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.* THE time is coming, it is to be hoped, when a more philosophical, as well as a more just and charitable view will be taken, of the causes and consequences of the different sects which, from time to time, have sprung up in the Christian church. They are too often considered as heresies, that is, divisions arising from a bad and perverse spirit, and not the results aimed at by honest minds, earnestly and fearlessly seeking for truth. It is a much more charitable, and, we believe, a truer view to take of them, to consider them as the consequence of the comprehensive nature of truth, and the limited capacities of the human intellect, together with the almost endless relations of Christian duty, and the consequent failure of any one man, or any class of men, to arrive at, or express the fulness and perfection of the Christian character. Minds arise, from time to time, of deeper penetration and wider grasp * An essay written and published 1843. |