 Chapter 12 of the Home Education Series, Volume 2, Parents and Children. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Brooke Favorite, www.alongsidemom.com. The Home Education Series, Volume 2, Parents and Children, by Charlotte Mason, Chapter Faith and Duty Claims of Philosophy as an Instrument of Education English Educational Thought Tends Towards Naturalism Since Locke established a School of English Educational Thought based on English Philosophy, our tendency has been exclusively towards naturalism, if not materialism, to the exclusion of a vital element in education, the force of an idea. Madame de Steyle has a remarkable passage concerning this tendency in English Philosophy, which, though we may not be disposed to admit her conclusions en bloc, should certainly give us pause and lead us to consider whether we should not wisely modify the tendencies of our national thought by laying ourselves open to foreign influences. Madame de Steyle, Upon Locke Hobbes prie de la lettre la philosophie qui fait dériver un peu d'éducation. Il n'en crée ni poire les conséquences, et il a dit à l'immense que les métiers soumise à la nécessité, comme la société, au despotisme. Le cours de tous les sentiments de l'évée est pur et tellement consolidé en Angleterre par les institutions politiques et religieuses, que l'espectulation de l'esprit tournature de ses empeisons connaît sans jamais les embroler. Hobbes e donc plus de par des ans dans son paix, mais l'influence de l'orgue fut plus universelle. Comme son caractère était morale et religieuse, il ne s'est permis au son de raisements corruptures qui déravaient nécessairement de sa métaphysique. Elle a plupart de ses compatriotes et d'adoptantes en tout cas Louis-Lal Noble a un conséquence d'éducation. La métaphysique de Locke n'en a d'autres faits sur les esprits, en Angleterre, que de tournir un peu l'urginalité naturelle. Quand même LDC chèrerait la source de grandes pensées philosophiques, il ne saurait détruire les sentiments religieuses qui sait si bien ni se plaient, mais ne se plaient pas. La métaphysique de Locke n'en a d'autres faits sur les esprits, en Angleterre, et qui sait si bien ni se plaient, mais cette métaphysique reçue, dans le reste de l'Europe, l'homanie acceptée, a été l'une des principales causes de l'humoralité dont on s'est fait une théorie pour une muse à saurer la pratique. Our educational efforts lack definite aim. It is well that we should recognize the continuity of English educational thought and perceive that we have in Spencer and Bain the lineal descendants of the earlier philosophers. Probably the chief source of weakness in our attempt to formulate a science of education is that we do not perceive that education is the outcome of philosophy. We deal with the issue and ignore the source, hence our efforts lack continuity and definite aim. We are content to pick up a suggestion here, a practical hint there, without even troubling ourselves to consider what is that scheme of life of which such hints and suggestions are the output. We are on the verge of chaos. Mr. Green Street's translation of M. Fouillet's remarkable work should not be without its effect upon the burning questions of the hour. As the translator well says in his preface, the spirit of reform is in the air. The question of the retention of Greek at the universities is but a ripple of the great wave that seems ready to burst upon us and to obliterate the characteristic features of our national system of education. A glance at the various forms of the educational systems obtaining in Europe and America is sufficient to betray to the observant eye how near to the verge of chaos we are standing. But also in the throes of an educational revolution. These are words of insight and wisdom, but let us not therefore despair as though the end of all things were at hand. The truth is we are in the throes of an educational revolution. We are emerging from chaos rather than about to plunge into it. We are beginning to recognize that education is the applied science of life and that we really have existing material in the philosophy of the ages and the science of the day to formulate an educational code whereby we may order the lives of our children and regulate our own. We need not aspire to a complete and exhaustive code of educational laws. This will come to us duly when humanity has, so to speak, fulfilled itself. Meantime, we have enough to go on with if we would believe it. What we have to do is to gather together and order our resources, to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence, and to see that education is neither more nor less than the practical application of our philosophy. Hence, if our educational thought is to be sound and effectual, we must look to the philosophy which underlies it, and must be in a condition to trace every council of perfection for the bringing up of children to one or other of the two schools of philosophy of which it must needs be the outcome. Is our system of education to be the issue of naturalism or idealism? Or is there indeed a media via? This is practically the question which Moussir Fouillet sets himself to answer in the spirit of a philosophical educationalist. He examines his premises and draws his deductions with a candour, culture, and philosophic insight which carry the confidence of the reader. No doubt he is of a mind with that umpire in a cricket match who lays down the dictum of which he must be in the middle of the school of thought. Who lays down the dictum that one must be quite fair to both sides with a little leaning to one's own. Moussir Fouillet takes sides with classical as preferred to scientific culture. But he is not a mere partisan. He has philosophic reasons for the faith that is in him. And his examination of the question of national education is full of instruction and inspiration for the thoughtful parent as well as for the schoolmaster. The ethical view in education. Moussir Fouillet gives in his preamble a key to his treatment of the subject. He says, quote, on this as on all great questions of practical philosophy, Guillaume has left his mark. He has treated the question from the highest standpoint and has treated it in a strictly scientific form. Given the hereditary merits and faults of a race, how far can we modify existing heredity by means of education for a new heredity? For the problem is nothing less than this. It is not merely a matter of the instruction of individuals, but of the preservation and improvement of the race. Education must therefore be based upon the physiological and moral laws of the culture of races. The ethnical is the true point of view. By means of education, we must create such hereditary tendencies as will be useful to the race both physically and intellectually. Moussir Fouillet begins at the beginning. He examines the principle of selection and shows that it is a working principle, not only an animal, but an intellectual, aesthetic, and moral life. He demonstrates that there is what may be called psychological selection, according to whose laws those ideas, which are the fittest to rule the world, and it is in the light of this truth of the natural selection of ideas and of their enormous force that he would examine the vexed question of the subjects and methods of education. No attempt has been made to unify education. Moussir Fouillet complains with justice that no attempt has been made to harmonize or unify education as a whole in any one civilized nation. Controversy rages round quite secondary questions, whether education shall be literary or scientific, and again whether the ancient or the modern languages shall be taught, but science and literature do not exhaust the field. Our author introduces a new candidate. He says, In this volume we shall inquire if the link between science and literature is not to be found in the knowledge of man, of society, of the great laws of the universe, i.e. in morals and social science and aesthetics, in a word in philosophy. Claims of philosophy as an educational agent. Now this is the gist of the teaching which we have labored to advance in the parents' union and its various agencies. The proper study of mankind is man, is one of those thoughts beyond their thought, which poets light upon, and I am able to add my personal testimony to the fact that under no other study with which I am acquainted is it possible to trace such almost visible expansion of mind and soul in the young student as in this of philosophy. A peculiarly interesting and original line of thought worked out very fully in this volume is that just as the child with an individual bent should have that bent encouraged and educated, so of a nation. If social science rejects every mystical interpretation of the common spirit animating a nation, it by no means rejects the reflected consciousness or spontaneous divination possessed by every nation of the functions which have devolved upon it. A nation should be educated for its proper functions. Here is a most fruitful suggestion. Think of the fitness of a scheme of physical, intellectual, and moral training based upon our ideal of the English character and of the destiny of the English nation. The chapter on Power of Education and of Idea Forces suggestions, heredity, is very valuable as utilizing a floating nebulae of intuitions which are coming upon us in connection with the 101 hypnotic marvels of the day. Miser Fouillet maintains that the power of instruction and education denied by some and exaggerated by others being nothing but the power of ideas and sentiments it is impossible to be too exact in determining at the outset the extent and limits of this force. This psychological problem is the foundation of pedagogy. Miser Fouillet neglects the physiological basis of education. In a word, Miser Fouillet returns boldly to the Platonic philosophy. The idea is to him all in all, in philosophy and education. But he returns empty-handed. The wave of naturalism, now perhaps on the ebb, has left neither flotsam nor jetsam for him, save for stranded fragments of the Darwinian theory. Now it is to this wave of thought, naturalistic, materialistic, what you will, that we owe the discovery of the physiological basis of education. While we believed that thought was purely volatile, incapable of impact upon matter, or of being acted upon by matter, our theories of education were necessarily vague. We could not catch our aerial, how then could we school him? But now the physiologists have taught us that our willful sprite rests with the tips of his toes at any rate upon solid ground. Nay more, his foothold is none so slight but that it leaves footmarks behind, and impress on that domain of the physical in which we are somewhat at home. The impalpable thoughts that we think leave their mark upon the quite palpable substance of the brain set up so the physiologists tell us connections between the nerve cells of which that organ is composed. In fact, to make a long story short, the cerebrum grows to the uses it is earliest and most constantly put to. This fact opens up a function of education upon which M. Fourier hardly touches, that most important function of the formation of habits, physical, intellectual, moral. As has been well said, so enact, reap a habit, so a habit reap a character, so a character reap a destiny. And a great function of the educator is to secure that acts shall be so regularly, purposefully and methodically sown, that the child shall reap the habits of the good life in thinking and doing with the minimum of conscious effort. The minor moralities become matters of habit. We are only now beginning to discover how beneficial are the laws which govern our being. Educate the child and write habits and the man's life will run in them without the constant wear and tear of the moral effort of decision. Once, twice, three times in a day, he will still, no doubt, have to choose between the highest and the less high, the best and the less good course. But all the minor moralities of life may be made habitual to him. He has been brought up to be courteous, prompt, punctual, neat, considerate, and he practices these virtues without conscious effort. It is much easier to behave in the way he is used to than to originate a new line of conduct. And this is so because it is graciously and mercifully ordered that there shall be a physical record and adaptation as the result of our educational efforts and that the enormous strain of moral endeavor shall come upon us only occasionally. So a habit reap a character. That is, the formation of habits is one of the chief means whereby we modify the original hereditary disposition of the child until it becomes the character of the man. The idea which initiates a habit. But even in this physiological work, the spiritual force of the idea has its part to play. For a habit is set up by following out an initial idea with a long sequence of corresponding acts. You tell a child that the great duke slept in so narrow a bed that he could not turn over because said he, when you want to turn over it's time to get up. The boy does not wish to get up in the morning but he does wish to be like the hero of Waterloo. You stimulate him to act upon this idea day after day for a month or so until the habit is formed and it is just as easy as not to get up in good time. Can spirit act upon matter? The functions of education may be roughly defined as twofold. A. The formation of habits. B. The presentation of ideas. The first depends far more largely than we recognize on physiological processes. The second is purely spiritual in origin, method and result. Is it not possible that here we have the meeting point of the two philosophies which have divided mankind to think about their thoughts and ways? Both are right, both are necessary. Both have their full activity in the development of a human being at his best. The crux of modern thought, as indeed of all profound thought, is Is it conceivable that the spiritual should have any manner of impact upon the material? Every problem from the education of a little child to the doctrine of the incarnation turns upon this point. Conceive this possibility and all is plain from the unlawful marvels resulting from hypnotic suggestion to the miracles of our faith. It becomes possible, though not easy, to believe what we are told that by an effort of passionate concentration of thought and feeling the devout have arrived at the figure of the stigmata upon hands and feet. With this key nothing is impossible to our faith. All we ask for is precedent. And after all, this interaction of forces is the most common and every day of our experiences. What is it but the impact of spirit upon matter which writes upon the face of flesh that record of character and conduct which we call countenance? And not only upon the face, he is a dull scholar in the lore of human nature who cannot read a man fairly well from a back view. The sculptor knows the trick of it. There's a statue of the late Prince Consort in Edenburg in which representative groups pay homage to the Prince. Stand so as to get the back view of any one of them and the shoulders of scholar, soldier, peasant, artisan. Tell unmistakably the tale of their several lives. What is this but the impress of spirit upon matter? There is no middle way open. Anyway we are on the horns of a dilemma. There is no middle course open to us. The physiologists have made it absolutely plain that the brain is concerned with thinking. Nay more that thought may go on without any volition on the part of the thinker. Further that much of our best work in art and literature is the result of what is called unconscious celebration. Now we must admit one of two things. Either thought is a process of the material brain, one more mode of motion as the materialists contend, or the material brain is the agent of the spiritual thought which acts upon it let us say as the fingers of a player upon the keys of his instrument. Grant this and the whole question is conceded. The impact of the spiritual upon the material is an accepted fact. The individuality of children is safeguarded. As we have had occasion to say before, in this great work of education parents and teachers are permitted to play only a subordinate part after all. You may bring your horse to the water and you can't make him drink, and you may present ideas of the fittest to the mind of the child, but you do not know in the least which he will take and which he will reject. And very well for us it is that this safeguard to his individuality is implanted in every child's breast. Our part is to see that his educational plat is constantly replenished with fit and inspiring ideas, and then we must needs leave it to the child's own appetite that he will have and as much as he requires of one thing we must be aware. The least symptom of satiety, especially when the ideas we present are moral and religious, should be taken as a serious warning. Persistence on our part just then may end in the child's never willingly sitting down to that dish anymore. Importance of salient ideas The very limitations we see to our own powers in this matter of presenting ideas should make us the more anxiously careful as to the nature of the ideas set before our children. We shall not be content that they learn geography, history, Latin, what not. We shall ask what salient ideas are presented in each study and how will these ideas affect the intellectual and moral development of the child. We shall be in a mood, that is, to go calmly and earnestly into the question of education by Monsieur Fouillet. We shall probably defer from him in many matters of detail, but we shall most likely be inclined to agree with his conclusion that not some subject of mere utility, but moral and social science conveyed by means of history, literature, or otherwise, is the one subject which we are not at liberty to leave out from the curriculum of a being breathing thoughtful breath. The tables of study given in the appendix are of extreme value. Every subject is treated from what may be called the ideal point of view. A Scientific Spirit Quote Two things are necessary. First, we must introduce into the study of each science the philosophic spirit and method, general views, the search for the most general principles and conclusions. We must then reduce the different sciences to unity by a sound training in philosophy which will be as obligatory to students in science as to students in literature. Scientific truths, said Descartes, are battles one. Described to the young the principle and most heroic of these battles, you will thus interest them in the results of science and you will develop in them a scientific spirit by means of the enthusiasm for the conquest of truth. You will make them see the power of the reasoning which has led to discoveries in the past and will do so again in the future. How interesting arithmetic and geometry might be if we gave a short history of their principal theorems, if the child were mentally present at the labors of a Pythagoras, a Plato, a Euclid, or in modern times of a Vietta, a Descartes, a Pascal, or a Leibniz. Great theories, instead of being lifeless and anonymous abstractions, would become human living truths, each with its own history, like a statue by Michelangelo, or like a painting by Raphael. End quote. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of the Home Education Series Volume 2 Parents and Children This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Brooke Favorite www.alongsidemom.com The Home Education Series Volume 2 Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason Chapter 13 Faith and Duty Man Lives by Faith Godward and Manward Things sacred and things secular and irreligious classification There is a little involuntary resistance in our minds to any teaching which shall draw the deep things of our faith within the sphere of the laws which govern our development as human beings. We prefer that the commerce between God and the soul in which is our life should be altogether supernatural, apart from the common laws of life arbitrary, inexplicable, opposed to reason. If we err in this, it is in reverence we err. Our thought may be poor and crude, but all our desire is to hallow the divine and we know no other way in which to set it apart. But though we err in reverence we do err and in the spiritual as in the natural world the motive does not atone for the act. We lose through this misconception of our relations with God the sense of unity in our lives. We become aware of an altogether unnatural and irreligious classification into things sacred and things secular. We are not in all things that one with God. There are beautiful lives in which there is no trace of this separation whose aims are confined to the things we call sacred. But many thoughtful earnest persons feel sorely the need of a conception of the divine relation which shall embrace the whole of human life which shall make art, science, politics, all those cares and thoughts of men which are not rebellious, sacred also as being all engaged in the great evolution, the evolution of the kingdom of God. Every man develops his own philosophy. Our religious thought as our educational thought is far more than we imagine the outcome of our philosophy. And do not let us imagine that philosophy is not for the general run of men but only for the few. On the contrary there is no living soul who does not develop his own philosophy of life that which he appropriates of the current thought of his time modified by his own experiences. It would be interesting to trace the effect upon religious thought of the two great schools of philosophy the idealistic and the naturalistic. But that is beyond the writer's power and beyond our purpose here. We must confine ourselves to what is immediately practical. The present day crux is that naturalistic philosophy being in the ascendant and the things of our religion being altogether idealistic many noble natures are in revolt feeling that they cannot honestly accept as truth that which is opposed to human reason. Others to whom their religious faith is the first thing but who are yet in touch with the thought and discovery of the day affect an only half honest compromise with themselves and say that there are certain questions which they will not examine. Matters secular alone being open to searching scrutiny. Now it is not as we so often hear that the times are out of joint. That Christianity is a feat. That there is any inherent antagonism between the facts of natural and the facts of spiritual life. It is our own philosophy which needs to be adjusted. We have somehow managed to get life out of focus. We have begun with false initial ideas and have taken the logical inferences from these for essential truth. We have not perceived that the concern of the reasoning powers is not with moral or spiritual truth or even with what we call facts but is simply with the logical inferences from any premises whatever accepted by the mind. All intercourse of thought belongs to the realm of ideas. In our examination of Miserfouillet's education from a national standpoint we made some attempt to show that the two schemes of philosophy which have hitherto divided the world have done so because both are right and neither is exclusively right. Matter and spirit, force and idea work together in the evolution of character. The brain somehow makes material record of these ideas which inspire the life. But the brain does not originate those ideas. They are spiritual in their nature and are spiritually conveyed whether by means of the printed page, the glance of an eye, the touch of a hand or in that holy mystery of the in-breathing of the divine spirit of which we cannot tell whence it comes nor whether it goes. Once we recognize that all thoughts that breathe and words that burn are of their nature spiritual and appeal to the spiritual within us, that in fact all intercourse of thought and feeling belongs to the realm of ideas spiritually conveyed, the great mysteries of our religion cease to be hedged off from our common experiences. If the friend who sits beside us deals with us spirit with spirit by means of quick interchange of ideas is it hard to believe that just so is the intercourse between the spirit of God and the spirit of man? The more perfect the sympathy between human souls, the less the need for spoken words. How easy to go on from this to the thought of that most intimate and blissful of all intercourse, the converse between the devout soul and its God. It is obvious and natural that the Father of Spirits should keep open access to the spirits of men. Nothing can be more obvious, real, natural, necessary than that the Father of Spirits should graciously keep open such intimate access to and converse with the spirits of men. I would that one would grant me, O my Lord, to find thee only, that all alone would speak to me and I to thee as a lover talking to his loved one, a friend at table with his friend. Is ever the aspiration of the devout soul. This continuous aspiration towards closest communion is spoken or unspoken the prayer of faith. A vain and fond imagination says the skeptic, begotten of the heart as when Narcissus became enamored of his reflected image, what have they say in reply? Nothing. He who does not perceive that he loves in his brother, not the material form, but the spiritual being of which this form is one expression, how can he understand that the spirit of God should draw with irresistible drawings the spirit of man which is indeed the whole man? For after all what is the body but the garment which the spirit shapes to its uses? Easy Tolerance commends itself to many minds. To accept the outward seeming, to ignore the spiritual reality is the easier way. To say that prayer is flung as a child flings his kite into the air only to come down again. To say that men are the creatures of circumstances with no power to determine their own fate, that this belief and that are equal verities and that the worship of Christ or of Buddha is a mere affair of climate and conditions. This easy tolerance commends itself to many minds in these days. Thackeray on the easy and skeptical attitude. And to what does this easy and skeptical life lead a man? To what we say does this skepticism lead? It leads a man to shameful loneliness and selfishness, the more shameful because it is so good-humored and consciousness and serene. Conscience, what is public or private faith? Mythesis alike enveloped an enormous tradition. If seeing and acknowledging the lies of the world, Arthur, as see them you can with only too fatal a clearness, you submit to them without any protest further than a laugh. If plunged yourself in easy sensuality, you allow the whole wretched world to go past groaning by you unmoved. If the fight for the truth is taking place and all men of honor are on the ground, armed on the one side or the other, and you alone are to lie on your balcony and smoke your pipe out of the noise and the danger, you had better have died or never have been at all than be such a sensual coward. Man lives by faith, godward and manward. Canon Beeching's eleven sermons on faith are in refreshing contrast with this sort of modern sagacism. In his view, faith is not mystic, supernatural and exceptional development, it is the common basis of our dealings with each other. Credit, trust, confidence, the framework of society rests upon these. I cannot trust you, but worse thing can we say to one another. The law recognizes every man's right to the confidence of his fellow men, and will have a counted innocent until he is proved guilty. Our whole commercial and banking systems, what are they but enormous systems of credit, and only one in a hundred or one in a thousand fails to sustain this credit. Family and social life rest upon credit of another sort, let us call it moral credit, and only one in a hundred or one in a thousand forfeits the trust. If one here and there give occasion for jealousy, trust, suspicion, why the exception proves the rule. In his dealings with men man lives by credit, in his dealings with God man lives by faith. Let us use the same word in both cases and say that man is a spiritual being, and in all his relations God word or man word he lives by faith. How simple and easy a thing faith becomes, how especially easy to the children who trust and offer a confiding hand to any guide. Could we only rid ourselves of the materialistic notion that spiritual things are not to be understood by us, and that to believe in God is altogether a different thing from to trust a friend, how easy we should find the questions which we allow to stagger our faith. Faith is the simple trust of persons in a person. But the kingdom of God is coming upon us with power. Let us only break down this foolish barrier of the flesh. Let us perceive that our relations with each other are the relations of spirit with spirit, and that spoken and written words are no more than the outward and visible signs of ideas spiritually conveyed and how inevitable, incessant, all encompassing becomes the presence of God about us. Faith is then the simple trust of person in person. We realize with fearful joy that he is about our path and about our bed and spieth out all our ways, not with the austere eye of a judge but with the caressing, if critical glance of a parent. How easy then to understand the never-ceasing, ever-inspiring intercourse of the divine spirit with the spirit of man. How morning by morning he awakeneth our ear also how his inspiration and instruction come in the direction and in the degree in which the man is capable of receiving them. It is no longer a puzzle to us that the uninstructed savage shows sweet traits of pity and generosity, for his God doth instruct him and doth teach him. We are not confounded when we hear of a righteous man who lifts up his face to heaven and says, there is no God because we know he maketh his son to shine upon the evil and upon the good, and that just that measure of moral light and leading which a man lays himself open to receive is freely given to him. He may shut his eyes and say, there is no son, but none the less he is warmed and fed and comforted by the light he denies. This is the faith in which we would bring up our children. This strong, passionate sense of the dear nearness of our God. Firm in this conviction. The controversies of the day will last but not exercise us, for we are on the other side of all doubt once we know him in whom we have believed. Faith, a lore of the soul which demands study. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. We advance in this lore of the soul only in proportion as we make it our study, and all of us who have the bringing up of children must needs be thankful for every word of help and insight that will open our eyes to the realities which are spiritually discerned. In this view parents will be glad to read and ponder the sermons before us. Profound thought is conveyed in language of very great simplicity and purity. The sermons are written from the standpoint of present day thought are not at all emotional, nor even hordatory, but they are very strengthening and refreshing. You read and go on your way rejoicing in a strong sense of the reality of things unseen. Perhaps this result is due to Mr. Beeching's presentation of the naturalness of faith. The naturalness of faith. Quote, it is noticeable that while our Lord is always demanding faith He offers no definition of the faith He requires so that there is a presumption that He meant by faith just what men ordinarily mean by it. And the presumption is increased when it is remembered that faith in our Lord began with being faith in human qualities before those qualities were seen to be divine. The faith of the apostles increased under our Lord's careful training both in depth and breadth, but between the first attraction that drew say Peter from his nets and the last declaration of his worship upon the shores of Ganesaret there was no breach of continuity. Indeed as if to assure us that the apostles human faith had not after the resurrection changed to something else and become an indefinite theological virtue. We find the word used to express it which of all the words which labor to express faith is the one most deeply tinged with human feeling. Simon, son of Jonas lovest thou me more than these we must ask therefore what as between man and man is commonly meant by faith and then we can examine whether our explanation fits the several groups of passages in the gospels end quote. Faith is no self-originated impulse. The above extract from the very thoughtful and instructive preface illustrates what we mean by the naturalness of faith. Not that which comes of itself and by itself but that which is acceptable, fit and proper to our nature whenever and once so ever it arrive. For as Mr. Beeching says, as faith is itself no self-originated impulse but the springing up of a man's heart in response to the encircling pressure of the everlasting arms, so its reward is to feel more deeply and ever more deeply their divine support. The eleven sermons are upon the object of faith the worship of faith the righteousness of faith the food of faith national faith the eye of faith the ear of faith the activity of faith the gentleness of faith the discipline of faith faith in man. The compassion of Christ In his examination of the object of faith, Mr. Beeching asks, what then is he like? What kind of countenance is it that shines out upon us from the gospel pages? Let us turn to them and see. And we read the story of how Jesus moved with compassion touched the eyes of the two blind men by the wayside going out from Jericho. How Christ had compassion on other things besides bodily sickness. Christ has compassion also on ignorance on the aimless wandering of men after their own desires without a master to follow on the weariness of spirit that such a life brings about. Again Christ has compassion not only on sickness and ignorance but on sin on the sinner who repents. And we read the story of the woman whose sins which were many were forgiven for she loved much. Again we see the countenance of Christ as it turned upon that young man of whom it is said, then Jesus looking upon him loved him. Compassion then for suffering and ignorance and sin that repents love for enthusiasm this we have seen in the face of Christ. In one more divine regard we are invited to contemplate how the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. Can you imagine with what a face our Lord looked upon Peter who had thrice denied him after confidently affirming that he would go with him to death would that that face would shine upon us with whatever reproach when we in word or deed deny him that so we too may remember and weep. How the heart rises to such as this the simple presentation of Christ as he walked among men. Well did our Lord say I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me. The pity of it is that he the altogether lovely is so seldom lifted up to our adoring gaze. Perhaps when our teachers invite us to behold the face of Christ we shall learn the full interpretation of that profound word. He will draw all men because it is not possible for any human soul to resist the divine loveliness once it is fairly and fully presented to his vision. The worship of faith The sermon on the worship of faith sets forth that to worship Christ is to bow down with love and wonder and thankfulness before the most perfect goodness that the world has ever seen and to believe that that goodness was the express image of God the Father. All aims and all ideals that are not the aims and ideals of Christ are distinctly opposed to such worship and the man who entertains these alien ideals may not call himself a Christian. After examining the attitude of the spirit towards Christ which belongs to the worship of faith the rest of the sermon is very practical work is worship is the keynote one longs that a writer who knows so well how to touch the secret springs has taken this opportunity to move us to that heart's adoration which is dearer to God but indeed the whole volume has this tendency. It is well to be reminded that the thorough and willing performance of any duty however humble or however exalted is like the offering of incense to Christ well pleasing and acceptable. The sermon on the righteousness of faith is extremely important and instructive. The writer dwells on the deplorable can't with which we pronounce ourselves miserable sinners combining the sentiments of the Pharisees in the parable with the expressions of the publican. Righteousness is a certain disposition of the spirit of man to the spirit of God quote. Christ's language about man's sinfulness is altogether free from vagueness and hyperbole. When he blames he blames for definite faults which we can appreciate and he is so far from declaring that men do no good thing that he assumes always that man in his proper state of dependence upon God has the power to do righteousness whosoever shall do the will of my father which is in heaven the same is my brother and sister and mother. But the question remains how considering our actual shortcomings can any of us be spoken of by Christ as righteous here and now this is the question in answer to which Saint Paul wrote two of his greatest epistles. His answer was that according to Christ a man is accounted righteous not from a consideration of his works but from a consideration of his faith in God. Human righteousness is not a verdict upon the summing up of a life but it is reckoned to a man at any moment from a certain disposition of his spirit to the spirit of God. A disposition of trust, love, reverence the disposition of a dutiful son to a good father. Righteousness in the only sense in which it is possible for men means believing and trusting God." The teaching of these sermons should be helpful to parents. I have not space to take up in detail all the teaching of this inspiring little volume but I commend it to parents. Who as they have need to nourish the spiritual life in themselves who as they have need to determine themselves as to with how firm a grasp they hold the mysteries of our faith. Who as they need to have their ideas as to the supreme relationship so clear that they can be translated into baby speech. Besides we have seen that it is the duty of the educator to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence. Only one thing is needful that we have faith in God. Let us deliver our thoughts from vagueness and raise from variableness if we would help the children towards this higher life. To this end we gladly welcome teaching which is rather nourishing than stimulating and which should afford real help towards sober walking in pure gospel ways. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Home Education Series Volume 2 Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason Chapter 14 Parents are concerned to give the heroic impulse. Heroic poetry inspires to noble living to set forth as only art can the beauty and the joy of living, the beauty and the blessedness of death, the glory of battle and adventure, the nobility of devotion, to a cause, an ideal, a passion even, the dignity of resistance, the sacred quality of patriotism, that is my ambition here says the editor of Lyra Heroica in his preface. We all feel that some such expression of the simpler sentiments, more elemental emotions should be freely used in the education of children. That in fact heroic poetry contains such inspiration to noble living as as hardly to be found elsewhere and also we are aware that it is only in the youth peoples that these elemental emotions find free expression and song. We look at our own ballad literature and find plenty of the right material, but it is too occasional and too little connected. And so, though we would prefer that the children should imbibe patriotism and heroism at the one fountain head, we think it cannot be done. We have no truly English material so we say, for education in this kind and we fall back on the Homeric myths in one or other of the graceful and spirited renderings which have been made specially for children. Beowulf, our English Ulysses What if it should turn out that we have our own Homer, our own Ulysses? Mr. Book has made a great discovery for us who look at all things from the child's standpoint. Possibly he would not be gratified to know that his history of early English literature in valuable addition as it is to the library of the student and the man of letters should be appropriated as food for babes. All the same. Here is what we have long wanted. The elemental emotions and heroic adventures of the early English put into verse and tale strange and eerie as the wildest fairy tale yet breathing in every line the English temper and the English virtue that go to the making of heroes. Not that Beowulf, the hero of the great poem was precisely English but where the English came from there dwelt he and Beowulf was early adopted as the national hero whose achievements were sung in every hall. Beowulf is prudent and patient. The poem says Mr. Stopford Brook consisting of 3,183 lines is divided into two parts by an interval of 50 years. The first containing Beowulf's great deeds against the monster Grendel and his dam. The second Beowulf's conquest of the fire drake and his death in burial. We are told that we may fairly claim the poem is English that it is in our tongue and in our country alone that it is preserved. The hero Beowulf comes of brave and noble parents and mildness and more than mortal daring meet in him. When he comes to Northgar to conquer Grendel it is of his wise counsel as much as of his strength that we hear. The queen begs him to be friendly and counsel to her sons saying to him, thou holdest thy faith with patience and thy might with prudence of mind thou shalt be a comfort to thy people and a help to heroes. None it is said could order matters more wisely than he. When he is dying he looks back on his life and that which he thinks of the most is not his great war deeds but his patience his prudence his power of holding his own well and of avoiding new enmities. Have patience of thy woes. Each of us must await the close of life says he let him who can gain honour before he die that is best for a warrior when he is dead but do thou throughout this day have patience of thy woes I look for that from thee. Such the philosophy of this hero legendary or otherwise of some early century after Christ before his religion had found its way among those northern tribes I swore no false oaths gentle like Nelson he had Nelson's iron resolution what he undertook to do he went through without a thought save of getting to the end of it fear is wholly unknown to him and he seems like Nelson to have inspired his captains with his own courage I swore no false oaths he said when dying so also he kept his honour in faithfulness to his lord on foot alone in front while life lasted he was his king's defence he kept it in equal faithfulness when his lord was dead and that to his own loss for when the kingdom was offered to him he refused and trained the king's son to war and learning guarded him kindly with honour and avenged him when he was slain he kept it in generosity for he gave away all the gifts that he received in courtesy for he gave even to those who had been rude to him and he is always gentle and grave with women above all he kept it in war for these things are said of him so shall a man do when he thinks to gain praise that shall never end and cares not for his life in battle let us have fame or death he cries and when Wilof comes to help him against the dragon and Beowulf is wrapped in the flame Wilof recalls to him the aim of his whole life bear thyself well Beowulf beloved bear thyself well thou would want to say in youth that thou wouldst never let honour go now strong in deeds ward thy life firm souled prince with all thy might I will be thy helper these adds Mr. Stopford Brook are the qualities of the man and the hero and I have thought it worthwhile to dwell on them because they represent the ancient English ideal the manhood which pleased the English folk even before they came to Britain and because in all our history since Beowulf's time for twelve hundred years or so they have been repeated in the lives of the English warriors by land and sea chiefly honour the English ideal but it is not only the idea of a hero which we have in Beowulf it is also the idea of a king the just governor the wise politician the builder of peace the defender of his own folk at the price of his life the good king the folk king the war ward of his land the winner of treasure for the need of his people the hero who thinks in death of those who sail the sea the gentle and terrible warrior who is buried amid the tears of his people we owe Mr. Stopford Brook much gratitude for bringing this heroic ideal of the youth of our nation within reach of the unlearned but what have we been about to let a thousand years and more go by without ever drawing on the inspiration of this noble ideal and giving impulse to our children's lives we have many English heroes it may be objected we have no need of this resuscitated great one from a long buried past we have indeed heroes galore to be proud of but somehow they have not often been put into song in such wise as to reach the hearts of the children and the unlearned children should be in touch with Beowulf we have to thank Tennyson for our Arthur and Shakespeare for our Henry V but we imagine that parents will find their children's souls more in touch with Beowulf than with either of these no doubt because the legends of a nation's youth are the pages of history which most easily reach a child and Beowulf belongs to a younger stage of civilization than even Arthur we hope the author of early English literature will sometime give us the whole of the poem translated with a special view to children and interspersed with his own luminous teaching as we have it here the quaintness of the meter employed gives a feeling of which carries the reader back very successfully to the long ago of the poem we have already quoted largely from this history of early English literature but perhaps a fuller extract will give a better idea of the work and of its real helpfulness to parents the cost of the two rather expensive volumes should be well repaid if a single child were to be fired emulation of the heroic qualities therein sung action of the poem the action of the poem now begins with the voyage of Beowulf to the Danish coast the hero has heard that Hrothgar the chief of the Danes is tormented by Grendel a man devouring monster if Hrothgar's warriors sleep in Heirot the great hall he has built they are seized torn to pieces and devoured I will deliver the king thought Beowulf when he heard the tale from the roving sea men over the swan road I will see Hrothgar he has need of men his comrades urged him to the adventure in fifteen of them were willing to fight it out with him among the rest was a sea crafty man who knew the ocean paths their ship lay drawn up on the beach under the high cliff then there the well geared heroes stepped upon the stem while the stream of ocean whirled the sea against the sand to the ship to its breast bright and carved things of cost carried then the heroes and the armor well arrayed so the men out pushed on desired adventure their tight ocean wood swiftly went above the waves with a wind well fitted like as to a fowl the floater foam around its neck till about the same time on the second day the up curved prow had come on so far that at last the men saw the land ahead shining sea cliffs soaring headlands broad scenuses so the sailor of the sea reached the sea ways end Beowulf mine two eleven this was the voyage ending in a fjord with two high seascapes at its entrance the same kind of scenery belongs to the land whence they had set out when Beowulf returns over the sea the boat groans as it is pushed forth it is heavily laden the hollow under the single mast with the single sail holds eight horses swords and treasure and rich armours the sail is hoisted the wind drives the foam throated bark over the waves until they see the goddess cliffs the well known scenuses the keel is pressed up by the wind on the sand and the harbour guard who had looked forth afar or the sea with longing for their return one of the many human touches of the poem fastens the wide bosomed ship with anchoring chains to the strand lest the violence of the waves should sweep away the windsome boat at the end of the bay into which Beowulf sails is a low shore on which he drives his ship stem on planks are pushed out on either side of the prowl the wader folk slipped down on the shore tied up their sea-wood their battle-sarks clanged on them as they moved then they thanked the gods that the war paths had been easy to them on the ridge of the hill a landing-place the ward of the coast of the shieldings sat on his horse and saw the strangers bear their bright shields over the bulwarks of the ship to the shore he rode down wandering to the sea and shook mindily in his hands his heavy spear and called to the men who are ye of men having arms and hand covered with your coats of mail your keel of foaming or the ocean's street thus have urged along hither on the high sea never saw a greater earl upon this earth than is one of you hero in his harness he is no homestayer lest his looks belie him lovely with his weapons noble is his heir Beowulf lines 237 to 247 Beowulf replies that he is Hrothgar's friend and comes to free him from Grendel the secret foe on the dark nights he pities Hrothgar old and good yet as he speaks the teutonic sense of the inevitable wort passes by in his mind and he knows not if Hrothgar can ever escape Sorrow if ever he says Sorrow should cease from him release ever come and the welter of care become cooler the coastguard shows them the path and promises to watch over their ship the ground rises from the shore and they pass on to the hilly ridge behind which lies Hrothgar our gentle forefathers old English riddles the history of the early English literature takes us into other pleasant places here are two or three specimens of the riddles of the old bards and in riddle and saga we get most vivid pictures of the life and thoughts the ways and words of the forefathers whom we are too ready to think of as rude but who are here portrayed to us as gentle, mild and large of soul men and women whom we, their posterity may well delight to honour one here is Kinnowulf's riddle of the sword I'm a wondrous white for war strife shapen by my lord beloved lovelily adorned hallowed is my coarselet and a clasping wire glitters round the gem of death which my wielder gave to me he who wiles doth urge me wide wanderer that I am with him to conquest then I carry treasure cold above the garths through the glittering day I of smiths the handy work often do I quell men with battle edges me bedecks a king with his horde and silver honours me and hall doth withhold no word of praise of my ways he boasts for the many heroes where the mead they drink in restraint he lolls me then he lets me loose again far and wide to rush along me the weary with way farings cursed of all weapons riddle twenty one two the helmet speaks wretchedness I bear where so where he carries me he who clasps the spear on me still upstanding smite the streams of rain hail the hard grain helms me and the whore covers me and the flying snow in flakes falls all over me riddle seventy four six through ten it is unnecessary to say a word about the literary value and importance of mister stopford brooks great work there is nothing like leather and to parents all things present themselves as they may tell on education here is a very treasure trove end of chapter fourteen read by the story girl chapter fifteen of the home education series volume two parents and children this is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by abby j the home education series volume two parents and children by charlotte mason chapter fifteen is it possible the attitude of parents towards social questions a moral crisis the economic aspects of the great philanthropic scheme which brought timely relief to the national conscience before the setting in of the hard winter of 1891 are perhaps outside our province but it has educational aspects which we are in some measure bound to discuss in the first place the children in many homes here I do not believe that it is possible for the leper to change his spots general booth scheme brought this issue before us with startling directness and what the children here said today at the table and by the fireside about all such philanthropic effort will probably influence for their lives their attitude towards all philanthropic social missionary endeavor not only so but we ourselves who stand in some measure in local parent to the distressed in mind body or a state are compelled to examine our own position how far do we give and work for the ease of our own conscience and how far do we believe in the possibility of the instant and utter restoration of the morally degraded today forced themselves upon us we must be ready with a yay or an a we must take sides for or against such possibilities as should exalt philanthropic effort into a burning passion the fact is that great scheme forced a sort of moral crisis upon us whose effects are continually in evidence we too love our brother whether or still the scheme commends itself to us for its fitness seasonableness and promise one thing it assuredly did it revealed us to ourselves and that in an agreeable light it discovered to us that we too love our brother that we too yearn over the bruised with something however little of the tenderness of Christ the brotherhood of man is no fancy bread in the brain and we have loved our brother all the time the sick the poor, the captive and the sinner too but the fearful and unbelieving and slothful amongst us that is the most of us have turned away our eyes from beholding evils for which we saw no help but when a promise of deliverance was offered more adequate conceivably than any here to fore proposed why the solidarity asserts itself our brother who is bruised is not merely near and dear he is our very self and who so will ease and revive him is our deliverer too the idol of size the first flush of enthusiasm subsided we ask are we not after all led away by what Coleridge calls the idol of size wherein does this scheme differ in thousand others except in the colossal scale on which the experiment is to be tried and perhaps we should concede at the outset that this hope of deliverance is the same only more so as is being already worked out effectually in many an otherwise sunless corner of the great vineyard indeed the great project has its great risks risks which the quieter work escapes all the same there are aspects in which the remedy because of its vastness and inclusiveness is new hitherto we have helped the wretched in impossible circumstances not out of them our help has been as a drop in the bucket reaching to hundreds or thousands only of the lost millions even so we cannot keep it up we give today and withhold tomorrow worse than all our very giving is an injury reducing the power and the inclination for self-help or do we start some small amateur industry by way of making our people independent this pet industry may sometimes be a transparent mask for almsgiving and an encroachment upon regular industries and the rights of other workers quibono now and then is a gleam of hope now and then a soul and body snatched into safety but the hardest workers are glad of the noise of the wheels to keep the eternal quibono out of their ears there is so much to be done and so little means of doing it but this scheme what with the amplitude of its provisions what with the organization and the regimentation it promises the strong and righteous government the moral compulsion to well-doing considering these and the enormous staff of workers already prepared to carry it out the drearious pessimist amongst us concedes the general booth scheme may be worth trying but he says but do we believe in conversion can character be changed everything turns on the condition the originator wisely puts first there is the crux given money enough land enough men enough fully equip an officer this teeming horde of incapables and some sort of mechanical drill may be got through somehow but when a man's own character and defects constitute the reasons for his fall that character must be changed and that conduct altered and any permanent beneficial results are to be obtained the drunkard must be made sober the criminal honest the impure clean can this be done is the crucial question the question of the age is it possible that a man can emerge altogether out of his old self and become a new creature with new aims and new habits that such renovation is possible is the old contention of christianity here and not on the ground of the inspiration of the sacred text must the battle be fought out the answer to the one urgent question of the age what thinkie of christ depends upon the power of the idea of christ to attract and compel attention and of the indwelling of christ to vivify and elevate a single debased and torpid human soul many of us believe exultingly that the all power which is given into the hands of our master includes the power of upright standing, strength and beauty for every bruised human reed that this is so we have evidence in plenty beginning with ourselves but many others of us and those not the less noble consider with Robert Ellesmere that miracles do not happen the essential miracle the recorded miracles serve as pegs for the discussion the essential miracle is the utter and immediate renovation of a human being upon this possibility the saving of the world must hang and this many cannot receive not because they are stiff-necked but because it is dead against natural law as they know it proofs cases without end the whole history of the christian church in evidence yes but the history of the church is a checkered one and for individual cases we do not doubt the veracity of the details only nobody knows the whole truth some preparation in the past some motive in the present inadvertently kept out of sight may alter the bearings of any such case the honest skeptic this is roughly the position of the honest skeptic who would if he could believe heartily in general-booth scheme and by consequence in the convertibility of the entire human race to improve the circumstances even of millions is only a question of the magnitude of the nature taken the wisdom of the administration but human nature itself depraved human nature is to him the impossible quantity can the leopard change his spots the law against us heredity the vicious by inheritance who are they whom general-booth cheerfully undertakes to refashion amenable to the conditions of godly and righteous and sober living let us hear the life history of many of them in his own words the raking of the human cesspool little ones whose parents are habitually drunk whose ideas of merriment are gained from the familiar spectacle of the nightly debauch the obscenity of the talk of many of the children of some of our public schools could hardly be outdone even in Morah and the childhood save the word of the children of today reproduces the childhood of their parents their grandparents who knows their great grandparents these are no doubt the worst but the worst must be reckoned with first for if these slip through the meshes of the remedial net the masses more inert than vicious slide out through the breaks in the first place then the scheme embraces the vicious by inheritance proposes to mix up with the rest a class whose soul heritage is an inconceivable and incalculable accumulation of vicious inclinations and propensities and this in the face of that conception of heredity which is quietly taking possession of the public mind and causing many thoughtful parents to abstain from very active efforts to mold the characters of their children those of us whose attention has been fixed upon the working of the law of heredity until it appears to us to run its course unmodified and unlimited by other laws may well be pardoned for regarding with doubtful eye a scheme which has for its very first condition the regeneration of the vicious of the vicious by inherited propensity the law against us habit the vicious by Confederate habit use is second nature we say habit is ten natures habit begins as a cobweb and ends as a cable oh you'll get used to it whatever it is dare we face the habits in which these people have their being it is not only the obscene speech the unholy acts that which signifies is the manner of thoughts we think speech act are the mere outcome it is the habitual thought of a man which shapes that which we call his character and these can we reasonably doubt that every imagination of their heart is only evil continually we say use is second nature but let us consider what we mean by the phrase what is the philosophy of habit so far as it has been discovered to us the seat of habit is the brain the actual grey nervous matter of the cerebrum and the history of a habit is shortly this the cerebrum of man grows to those modes of thought in which it is habitually exercised that immaterial thought should mold the material brain need not surprise nor scandalize us for do we not see with our eyes that immaterial thought molds the face forms what we call countenance lovely or loathsome according to the manner of thought it registers the how of this brain growth is not yet in evidence nor is this the time and place to discuss it but bearing in mind this structural adaptation to confirmed habit what chance again we say has a scheme which has for its first condition the regeneration of the vicious not only by inherited propensity but by unbroken inveterate habit the law against us unconscious cerebration thoughts think themselves those who are accustomed to write know what it is to sit down and reel off sheet after sheet of matter without plan or premeditation clear, coherent, ready for press hardly needing revision we are told of a lawyer who wrote in his sleep a lucid opinion throwing light on a most difficult case of a mathematician who worked out in his sleep a computation which baffled him when awake we know that Coleridge dreamed Kubla Khan in an after-dinner nap line by line and wrote it down when he awoke what do these cases and a thousand like them point to to know less than this that though the all important ego must no doubt assist at the thinking of the initial thought on a given subject yet after that first thought or two brain and mind manage the matter between them and the thoughts so to speak think themselves not after the fashion of a pendulum which moves to and fro to and fro in the same interval of space but in that of a carriage rolling along the same road but into ever new developments of the landscape an amazing thought but have we not abundant internal evidence of the fact we all know that there are times when we cannot get rid of the thoughts that will think themselves within us though they drive away sleep and peace and joy in the face of this law then as it eases us of the labor of original thought and decision about the everyday affairs of life terrible when it gets beyond our power of control and diversion what hope for those in whose debauched brain vile thoughts in voluntary automatic are forever running with frightful rapidity in the one well worn track truly the in look is appalling what hope for these vicious imaginations and what of a scheme whose first condition is the regeneration of the vicious vicious not only by inherited propensity and by unbroken inveterate habit but reduced to that state of shall we say inevitable viciousness when unconscious cerebration with untiring activity goes to the emanation of vicious imaginations all these things are against us the law for us limitations to the doctrine of heredity but the last word of science and she has more and better words in store is full of hope the fathers have eaten sour grapes but it is not inevitable that the children's teeth be set on edge the soul that syneth it shall die said the prophet of old and science occurring up with her even so acquired modification not transmitted the necessary corollary to the latest presentation of the theory of evolution is acquired modifications of structure are not transmitted all hail to the good news to realize it is like waking up from a hideous nightmare this definitely is our gain the man who has by the continuous thinking of criminal thoughts has modified the structure of his brain so as to adapt it to the current of such thoughts does not necessarily pass on this modification to his child there is no necessary adaptation in the cerebrum of the newborn child to make place for evil thoughts in a word the child of the vicious may be born as fit and able for good living the child of the righteous inherent modifications are it is true transmitted and the line between inherent and acquired modifications may not be easy to define but anyway there is hope to go on with the child of the wicked may have as good a start in life so far as his birthright goes as the child of the just education stronger than nature the child's future depends not upon his lineage so much as upon his bringing up for education is stronger than nature and no human being need be given over to despair we need not abate our hope of the regeneration of the vicious for the bugbear of an inheritance of irresistible propensity to evil the law for us one custom over cometh another but habit it is bad enough to know that use is second nature and that man is a bundle of habits but how much more hopeless to look into the rationale of habit and perceive that the enormous strength of the habit that binds us connotes a structural modification a shaping of the brain tissues to the thought of which the habit is the outward and visible sign and expression once such growth has taken place is not the thing done so that it can't be undone has not the man taken shape for life when his ways of thinking are registered in the substance of his brain not so because one habit has been formed and registered in the brain is no reason at all why another and contrary habit should not be formed and registered in its turn today is the day of salvation physically speaking because a habit is a thing of now it may be begun in a moment, formed in a month confirmed in three months become the character the very man in a year natural preparation for salvation there is growth to the new thoughts in a new tract of the brain and one custom over cometh another here is the natural preparation for salvation the words are very old the words of thomas a compass but the perception that they have a literal physical meaning has been reserved for us today only one train of ideas can be active at one time the old cell connections are broken and benign nature is busy building up the waste places even be they the waste places of many generations no road is set up in the track where unholy thoughts carried on their busy traffic new tissue is formed the wound is healed and save perhaps for a scar some little tenderness that places whole and sound as the rest this is how one custom over cometh another there is no conflict no contention, no persuasion secure for the new idea a weighty introduction and it will accomplish all the rest for itself it will feed and grow it will increase and multiply it will run its course of its own accord will issue in that current of automatic unconscious involuntary thought of the man which shapes his character behold a new man ye must be born again we are told and we say with a sense of superior knowledge of the laws of nature how can a man be born again can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born this would be a miracle and we have satisfied ourselves that miracles do not happen conversion, no miracle and now at last the miracle of conversion is made plain to our dull understanding we perceive that conversion however sudden it is all using the word miracle to describe that which takes place in opposition to natural law on the contrary we find that every man carries in his physical substance the gospel of perpetual or of always possible renovation and we find how from the beginning nature was prepared with her response to the demand of grace is conversion possible we ask the answer is that it is so to speak a function for which there is latent provision in our physical constitution to be called forth by the touch of a potent idea truly his commandment is exceeding broad and grows broader day by day with each new revelation of science many conversions in a lifetime a man may most men do undergo this process of renovation many times in their lives whenever an idea strong enough to divert his thoughts as we most correctly say from all that went before is introduced the man becomes a new creature when he is in love for example when the fascinations of art or of nature take hold of him an access of responsibility may bring about a sudden and complete conversion the breath no sooner left his father's body but that his wildness mortified in him seemed to die too yay at that very moment consideration like an angel came and whipped the offending Adam out of him leaving his body as a paradise to envelop and contain celestial spirits here is a picture psychologically true anyway Shakespeare makes no mistakes in the psychology of an immediate absolute conversion the conversion may be to the worse alas and not to the better and the value of the conversion must depend upon the intrinsic worthiness of the idea by whose instrumentality it is brought about the point worth securing is that man carries in his physical structure the conditions of renovation conditions so far as we can conceive always in working order always ready to be put in force conversion is not contrary to natural law where for conversion in the biblical sense in the sense in which the promoters of this scheme depend upon its efficacy though a miracle of divine grace in so far as it is a sign and a marvel is no miracle in the popular sense of that which is outside of and opposed to the workings of natural law conversion is entirely within the divine scheme of things even if we choose to limit our vision of that scheme to the few faint and feeble flashes which science is as yet able to throw upon the mysteries of being but is this all ah no this is no more than the dim vestibule of nature to the temple of grace we are not concerned however to say one word here of how great is the mystery of godliness of the cherishing of the father the saving and the indwelling of the son the sanctifying of the spirit neither need we speak of spiritual wickedness in high places the aim of this slight essay is to examine the assertion that what we call conversion is contrary to natural law and we do this with a view not to general booth scheme only but to all efforts of help hope shows an ever stronger case for the regeneration of the vicious not only need we be no more oppressed by the fear of an inheritance of invincible propensities to evil but the strength of a lifelong habit may be vanquished by the power of an idea new habits of thought may be set up on the instant and these may be fostered and encouraged until that habit which is ten natures is the habit of the new life and the thoughts which so to speak think themselves all day long are thoughts of purity and goodness the law for us potency of an idea hath not adieu eyes hath not adieu hands organs dimensions faces affections passions conditions of the potency of an idea in effecting the renovation of a man the external agent is ever an idea of such potency as to be seized upon with a vitity by the mind and therefore to make an impression upon the nervous substance of the cerebrum the potency of an idea depends upon the fact of its being complimentary to some desire or affection within the man man wants knowledge for example and power and esteem and love and company also he has within him capacities for love esteem gratitude reverence kindness he has an unrecognized craving for an object on which to spend the good that is in him fitness of the ideas included in christianity the idea which makes a strong appeal to any one of his primal desires and affections must needs meet with a response such idea and such capacity are made for one another apart they are meaningless as ball and socket together they are a joint effective in a thousand ways but the man who is utterly depraved has no capacity for gratitude for example yes he has depravity is a disease a morbid condition beneath is the man capable of recovery this is hardly the place to consider them but think for a moment of the fitness of the ideas which are summed up in the thought of christ to be presented to the poor degraded soul divine aid and compassion for his neglected body divine love for his loneliness divine forgiveness in lieu of the shame of his sin divine esteem for his self contempt divine goodness and beauty to call forth the passion of love and loyalty that is in him the story of the cross the lifting up which perhaps no human soul is able to resist if it be fitly done the divine idea once received the divine life is imparted also grows is fostered and cherished by the holy ghost the man is a new creature with other aims and other thoughts and a life out of himself the old things have passed away and all things have become new the physical being embodying so to speak the new life of the spirit we may well believe indeed that conversion is so proper to the physical and spiritual constitution of man that it is inevitable to all of us if only the ideas summed up in christ be fitly introduced to the soul the question then turns not upon the possibility of converting the most depraved nor upon the potency of the ideas to be presented but all together upon the power of putting these ideas so that a man shall recognize and seize upon the fullness of Christ as the necessary compliment to the emptiness of which he is aware the habits of the good life curative treatment necessary the man converted the work is not done these sinners exceedingly are not only sinful but diseased morbid conditions of brain have been set up and every one of them needs individual treatment like any other sick man for disease slow of cure for a month three months six months it will not do to let one of them alone curative treatment is an absolute condition of success and here is where human cooperation is invited in what is primarily and ultimately the work of God there are places in the brain where ill thoughts have of old run their course and these sore places must have time blessed time were in to heal that is to say all traffic in the old thoughts must be absolutely stopped at whatever cost think of the army of vigilance which must be ever on the alert to turn away the eyes of the patients from beholding evil a single suggestion of drink of uncleanness and presto the old thoughts run riot and the work of healing must begin anew there is no way to keep out the old but by administering the thoughts of the new life watchfully one by one as they are needed and can be taken offering them with engaging freshness with comforting fitness until at last the period of anxious nursing is over the habits of the good life are set up and the patient is able to stand on his own feet and labor for his own meat this is no work to be undertaken wholesale the spiritual care of a multitude diseased even physically diseased of sin is no light thing and if it be not undertaken systematically and carried out efficiently the whole scheme must have necessity fall through who is sufficient for these things no one perhaps but a following of the great core of nurses trained to minister to minds diseased and with the experience and the method belonging to a professional calling is surely a fitting qualification for the herculean task the ease of discipline how readily we can understand how in the days when monarchs were more despotic than they are now one and another would take refuge in a convent for the ease of doing the will of another rather than his own is not this the attraction of conventional life today and is not this why the idea of the salvation army is powerfully attractive to some of us who know all the same that we individually should be wrong to lay down our proper function of ordering and acting out our own lives the relief of inclusion in a strong organization but for these strong of impulse and weak of will who have no power at all to do the good they vaguely and feebly desire the ease of being taken up into a strong and beneficial organization of having their comings and goings their doings and havings ordered for them organization regimentation we are reminded make a hero of Tommy Atkins and these all have it in them to be heroes because restlessness, rebellion want subdued they will rejoice more than any others in the ease of simply doing as they are bitten here is a great secret of power to treat these lapsed and restored like children for what is the object of family discipline of that obedience which has been described as the whole duty of a child is it not to ease the way of the child while will is weak and conscience immature by setting it on the habits of the good life where it is as easy to go right as for a locomotive to run on its lines just such present relief from responsibility such an interval for development do these poor children of larger growth demand for their needs and any existing possibility of ordering and disciplining this mixed multitude must needs appear to us a surpassing adaptation of supply to demand work and fresh air are powerful agents the saving grace of work and the healing power of the fresh air again should do their part in the restoration of the submerged but it is not our part to examine the methods proposed by general booth or to atom break his chances of success our concern is solely with the children the attitude of thought towards all good work which children will henceforth take may depend very much upon how far the underlying principles are made clear to them in one typical instance whatever the agency let children be assured that the work is the work of God to be accomplished in the strength of God according to the laws of God that it is our part to make ourselves acquainted with the laws we would work out and that having done all we wait for the inspiration of the divine life even as the diligent farmer waits upon sunshine and shower end of chapter 15