The greatness of the human soul. An address delivered at the seventh anniversary of the Mount Holyoke female seminary, South Hadley, Mass

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REV. ME.. KIRK'S ADDRESS

BEFORE THE

MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY,

August I, 1844.

r

THE GREATNESS OF THE HUMAN SOUL.

AN

ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT THE SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY

OF THE

MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY,

SOUTH HADLEY, MASS.

August 1, 1844.

- /
BY EDWARD N. KIRK,

PASTOR OF THE MOUNT VERNON CHURCH, BOSTOK.

Published by vote of the Trustees,

BOSTON:

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 24 CONGRESS STREET.

1844.

ADDRESS.

Certain phenomena of the mind are very mysterious,
and seem to indicate a mysterious connection with worlds
and beings unseen. Philosophy indeed has ventured to
account for them, by asserting the existence of a previous
state, of which the soul still retains vague, but delightful
remembrances. This misty theory, however, has now
given place to the clear announcements of revelation.
The theory we reject. The facts we deem worthy of close
observation. There are in man sentiments, faculties, and
aspirings which reveal, as by glimpses, a hidden world
superior to any thing that we know through the senses.
These sentiments, functions and exercises of the soul are
of very opposite kinds ; some, pure and lofty ; others,
terrible perversions, illusions and wanderings, equally
revealing the grandeur of its functions and of its destiny.
I allude for example, to the prevalent discontent of the
world, which, although sinful in itself, is an indication
and perversion of that which is most ennobling. We pity
and condemn, while we admire the soul's dissatisfaction,
its insatiable longings that no possession of earth, no
worldly success can gratify. The richest man feels him-
self poor, and wants more ; the mightiest conqueror weeps
to find the world circumscribing the field of his enterprise
and triumphs. Michael Angelo dies with forms of beauty
and grandeur in his mind, unchisselled and unpainted.

He never stood and gazed at the Sistine chapel, (where
his genius has left its proudest monument,) or at St.
Peter's pile, (to the beauty of which he mainly contribu-
ted,) and said, I am satisfied. He aspired, he hoped, at
the end, as at the beginning of his artistic race. You
have observed that on the thrones of the earth, in the
courts of princes, in the superior places of power, on the
crowned heights of fame and wealth, tlie heart is as really
discontented, as in the lower walks of life. In fact the
higher you raise man, and the more you enlarge his pos-
sessions, the more he betrays this infinite thirst, this tow-
ering ambition, this contempt of what is, and of what is
possessed. I am not justifying it ; I am not unaware of
the depravity it betrays ; it betrays depravity however
only as a perversion of all that is grand in the spirit
created after God's ima^e.

And then there are childish fancies, which belong to no
other creature than man in his infancy. Do you remem-
ber the wish so often indulged, that you could fly? After
lying upon the grass in the shade of a bright summer
afternoon, and watching the graceful motion of the birds,
and seeming to be yourself a swallow floating and skim-
ming the verdant meadow, you have retired to rest, and
still in dreams, burst the fetters of gravitation and swnng
along over fields and houses and trees; ''skimmed the
earth, soared above the clouds, bathed in the elysian dew
of the rainbow, inhaled the balmy smells of nard and
cassia, which the musky wings of the zephyrs scatter
through the cedared alleys of the Hasperides." The
most rational of the quadrupeds never dream so. I may
have attached too much to it ; while, on the other
hand, it may be more than a cerebral excitement. It
may be the struggling of a spirit born for freedom,
weary of its present state of enslavement to sense and
matter, and now rejoicing even to imagine itself free.
The love of romance and of legends, the greedy devour-

ings of the Arabian nights' entertainments are among the
perversions \vhich have to ns the same mystical significa-
tion. The lunatic in his ravings has exposed to our view
some heights and depths of the human soul on which we
had never looked before. We have heard him utter songs
of praise and strains of eloquence that allied him to
seraphs ; and in an instant the blasphemies of damned
spirits, the deep thunder notes, the harshest gratings of
hell's discord tore our distracted ear. How wonderful, we
have exclaimed, is the human soul ! We have watched
its healthful movements too, and reached the same result.
The memory that gives to the child of yesterday the
venerable antiquity of the globe it inhabits — the imagi-
nation that makes the Christian of the nineteenth century
the familiar companion of that old Chaldean patriarch who
founded the Jewish nation, and of that Jewish Egyptian
sage who founded its polity — the imagination that gives
the inhabitant of a few square inches of earth a partial
omnipresence, and annihilates time and space, and makes
the past, present, future and distant all equally now and
here ; that admirable creative faculty which makes and
adorns fairer worlds than have ever met the dull eye ; —
these, as well as Faith and Hope and Prayer are to us
wonderful, all wonderful, when we have reached the
meaning of them. They all, good and bad, alike indicate
a spiritual nature with its own peculiar, illimitable desires,
its exalted relations, its boundless sphere of action.

You see it is the soul of which I mean to speak ; man's
true and very self; of man in his superior nature, and of
the more important departments of that nature. And to
reach our object, I would lead you to survey the higher
faculties of man — the causes of their being neglected —
the consequences of that neglect, and the remedy.

The higher faculties.

In asserting that there is something in man conferring

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on him an infinite value, I liave not adduced the clear
testimony of revelation. There the peculiar origin of
man's spirit is figuratively represented by the breathing of
God himself into a material frame which he had construc-
ted like the rest of the universe, of inert matter. There
his immortality is declared, there his companionship with
angelic beings, and his relations to God and the universe
are represented as most sublime. There the value of the
soul is set forth in the price of its redemption, as incalcula-
ble by man himself. But we have omitted all this ; prefer-
ring, on this occasion, to reach our position from the point
of common observation, from actual phenomena, which
none can even question. And we shall presume it to be
admitted by all parties, that there is in man something
of incalculable value ; that he is a being endowed with
exalted faculties, and created for a glorious destiny. And
with this admission in view, we ask you to observe the
employments, the hopes, the condition, the conversation,
the pleasures of the multitude, the majority of men. You
must admit that you see little there in harmony with this
theory of his dignity. And popular as the theory is,
readily believed as it is in its general form, yet so far are
men's daily thoughts from it, and so little influence does
it exert on us, that it is as really necessary to bring up the
evidence of our own superior endowments and responsibil-
ities as though it were doubted or denied.

The most precious of God's gifts to man, are his intel-
lect and his moral faculties. Let us survey them separate-
ly ; observing first the various forms of mere intellect and
intellectual sensibility. This exalts man because it gives
his weak frame power to subdue the strongest beasts of
the earth, and bend the rugged forces and the tortuous
works of nature to subserve his j^urposes. It is elevating,
because it is one of the endowments which most ennobles
man in the estimation of his fellow-man ; and because it
gives fellowship with the noblest minds; and because it

makes him capable of intelligent alliance to Tiath and to
the whole mighty intellectual system. The intellect by
itself however, is not comparable to the moral nature of
man. It may be elevated indeed in the contemplation of
sublimity, beauty and truth ; gigantic in its comprehen-
sion of vastness, multitude and variety, and in its flights
toward the infinite. Still, it is a subordinate endowment,
and never so exalted as when it is subjected to the moral
sentiments. I propose to survey the grandeur of each
human soul by selecting from the common inheritance of
mind some of the finest specimens. And this I do, sup-
posing that each of us has something of the same rich
endowment, though it may be in altogether less degree
than is possessed by others.

Intellect has been the predominant quality in great war-
riors ; although generally separated from all the better
sentiments. There it has appeared in stupendous forms.
The battles, the campaigns of Hannibal, of Turenne, and
Marlborough, Washington, Wellington and Napoleon, were,
if you could consider them apart from the ambition, selfish-
ness, and cruelty which actuated many of them, and the in-
dividual suffering they caused, splendid displays of mental
power. It was not by brute force, but by intellect they
conquered. And while we admire that intellectual might
of Napoleon, let us remember that there is in every mind
here, at least the germ of that very energy and power of
combination, that capacity for observation of men and facts,
that memory and discernment and judgment which so emi-
nently characterized him. The power of intellect has dis-
tinguished all eminent painters, sculptors, architects and
musical composers. Place before you those three men of
genius, Angelo, Raphael and Rubens, and admire the
magnificence of created intellect. The first was Painter,
Sculptor, Architect, Poet and Engineer. His mind was a
world peopled by ideas vast and sublime. The anatomy
of his figures was astonishingly accurate. But while he

8

conformed thus rigidly to nature, his figures in their air,
attitude and action surpassed nature. Tliey were men,
but unearthly men. His prophets are corporeal expressions
of the holiness and majesty of their oflice. There is a
masculine energy in his conceptions that really overpowers
you more than nature's realities. Raphael, on the con-
trary, excelled in beauty, purity of form and perfection of
design. He fully revived the severe beauty of the antique.
Rubens moved in another world. To speak only of his
excellencies, he was full of poetry and carried all nature
in his memory. His works abound in richness of compo-
sition, luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of coloring. But
who can enumerate even the surviving monuments of in-
tellectual power, taste and true sentiment ! We should
here pass in review all the public and private galleries of
painting and statuary in Europe, the surviving architecture
of Europe and Asia ; as well the magnificent productions
of the Grecian chisel, the Apollo, the Jupiter, the Venus,
the Torso, the Gladiator and the Parthenon, as the less
beautiful but more majestic productions of Egyptian genius,
the Karnak, the Pyramids, the Sphinxes ; the wonders of
Roman, Saxon, Saracenic art, and the endless richness
and luxuriousness of the architectural genius of the mid-
dle ages in Europe. Nor should the works of Handel,
Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven be forgotten in our cata-
logue.

Then let us turn to the men of science, the philoso-
phers, the sages, the legislators and statesmen who have
carried forward the human race in its career of civilization.
Plato has been called a blessed spirit who chooses for a
time to take up his abode on earth, to communicate that
which is necessary to it. There is in him a distinguishing
purity of thought, a grandeur of soul, a noble aspiring, a
freedom and vigor of imagination, in a word, a pure spirit-
uality ; and then a power of embodying the most spiritual
conceptions in the most exquisite forms, which force us to

admire the created intellect of man. And what a gigantic
force do we behold in Aristotle, who bound the human
mind in chains for two thousand years, and is still fetter-
ing one of the most important universities in England !
He seems to have labored among men with a conscious-
ness of his commission to give an intellectual regeneration
to the world. To his penetrating, industrious spirit, the
treasures of matter, mind and philosophy lay open ; so
that he could employ as it liked him, the nature or the
reason of things to erect the great throne on which he sat
so long undisputed sovereign of the intellectual world.

Now turn with us to another class of intellectual facul-
ties which exhibit the dignity of man — the poetic.

The poetic faculty, whether receptive or creative, is an ev-
idence that the human spirit is great. Through it in every
age the soul of man has uttered its profoundest thoughts
and feelings. When human society existed in its simpler
states, and before philosophy and science had interrupted
the dominion of fancy, leaving the imagination to people
the air and rocks and rivers and seas with all conceivable
shapes of beauty and terror, then poetry was found in its
simplest forms, giving utterance to the wildness and tend-
erness and strength of human feeling. Nothing has gone
deeper into the soul of man than the rhythmical language
of true poetry in that period ; and that, because nothing
has come out from deeper places of the soul. We speak
here not of the inspiration of prophecy nor of that of
piety. They are unrivalled. Probably David the king
and Watts the divine have given wings and spiritual vision
and elective fire to more souls than all the uninspired and
unsanctified men of their period or any other. Hear what
a living French poet says of his own art. "Naive and
simple," says LaMartine, " in the cradle of nations; fabu-
lous and marvellous as a nurse by the child's crib ; amor-
ous and pastoral among a young and rural people ; warlike
and epic among the warrior and conquering hordes ; mystic,
2

10

lyric, proplietic or sententious in the theocracies of Egypt
and Judea; grave, philosophic and corrnpting in the ad-
vanced civilizations of Rome, of Florence or of Louis
XIV. ; dishevelled and howling in the epochs of convul-
sions and ruins, as in '93; new, melancholy, uncertain,
timid, audacious at the same time, in the days of social
regeneration and reconstruction as ours ! Later in the old
age of nations, sad, sombre, groaning and discouraged as
they, and breathing at the same time in its strophes the
mournful presentiments, the fantastic dreams of the world's
last catastrophe, and the firm and divine hopes of a resur-
rection of humanity under another form ; such is poetry."

M. Vinet in his fine critique on this view of poetry, has
said, " There was no poetry in Eden. Poetry is creation ;
to be a j)oet, is to reconstruct the universe ; and what had
the man of Eden to create, and why should he reconstruct
the universe? When innocence retired weeping from our
world, she met poetry on the threshold; they passed by
each other, cast on each other one look of tender recogni-
tion, and pursued their way, one towards heaven, the
other towards the habitations of men." This solves the
mystery of poetry. It is reconstruction, not of what we
personally have seen, but of the beautiful world which
our great progenitor knew, and for which we were created.
Hence true poetry is at once truth and exaggeration.
Hence its response in every heart, and its universal charm.

Go back to that earliest singer in the land of Uz ; an
Arab prince or sheik, perhaps of Abraham's stock. We
call him Job, and think we know him. Plis soul was
very deep, his eye Avas very clear, his vision very wide.
He was indeed only a man, and therefore erred in his in-
terpretation of God's ways. Still he went very deep into
the great secret of the universe, very deep; and so was a
true poet.

How shall we speak of Milton and Shakspeare and
Dante ! See the world of riches in the Paradise Lost ; its

11

landscapes, its theological philosophy, its portraits of angels
and devils, its Paradise and Hell, its battles in mid heaven,
the coming down of Messiah to decide the contest ! In a
word, gaze upon that mighty monument of genius, the
sixth book of Paradise Lost ! And remember that all this
was the product of one mind ; remember that it was writ-
ten in declining life, and after the saddest reverse of for-
tune! His voice is to us, now the sweetest flow of a
limpid stream, now the <' sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs
and harping symphonies." His mind was like the angels'
gymnastic ground, where

" O'er their heads.
Celestial armory, shield, helm and spear,
Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold."

Dante has been called "the voice often silent centuries
singing his mystic, unfathomable song." Look at him
quitting the Inferno, and moving up into the Purgatorio,
as he believed it ; false as fact — most true, most beautifid,
as emblem. It is the mountain of Purification, an emblem
of Repentance. The " tremolar dell 'onde," that trem-
bling of the ocean-waves under the first pure gleam of
morning, dawning afar off upon the wandering poet, is ex-
quisite. " Hope has now dawned ; never dying hope, if
in company still with heavy sorrow. The obscure sojourn
of demons and reprobate is under foot ; a soft breathing of
penitence mounts higher and higher, to the throne of
mercy itself."

It is a valuable suggestion of Carlyle, that this whole
Divina Comedia must be regarded as embodying the re-
ligious heart and faith of the middle ages, and the dramas
of Shakspeare as embodying the chivalry of past ages, the
outer world ; viewed in this light, what creations they
are !

We must now leave them, and illustrate intellectual
greatness by one more class; the Orators ; men who em-

12

ploy those " native colors and graces of speech, as true
eloquence, the daughter of virtue, can best bestow upon
her mother's praises." We know nothing on earth to
compare justly with the power of genuine oratory. Poetry
is powerful. But it is to be read or sung, away from the
poet. Aud its language is not the language of ordinary
hfe. Hence it pleases more, hence its dignity and myste-
rious magic ; and hence too, it sways the judgment less,
and sinks not so deep into the soul as oratory. The speaker
is there to utter his own words. It is a living man before
you. He is full of truth. He is a believer, he feels, and
he must make you feel. He is there to explain his mean-
ing, to urge his conviction, to connnunicate his feeling by
numberless signs. His attitude speaks, his eye, the mus-
cles of the face, the body, the arui, the hand, yea the fin-
gers speak. But above all, the voice ; this gives the fullest
and mightiest utterance to the spirit of man. And under
the full inspiration of a great theme and a great occasion,
it is, as one has well described it, " the piercing of a sword,
a winged thunderbolt, prostrating all opposition, inflaming
all souls." It were superfluous here to refer you to the
men who have displayed this power to a high degree.

We have now dwelt so long upon the merely intellectual
endowments of the human soul as to allow us only a brief
space for the moral and religious sentiments. These are
our link to the unseen, the spiritual world and to God its
author, infinite in being and excellence. Here is the true
dignity of man, that he is capable of knowing and loving
God, and of being loved by him. Let man look within
himself, and behold amid all other wonders, the greatest
wonder of creative power. Let him think of his own
conscience and heart, as ranking him among the first of
creatures ; the conscience, that eye to catch the smile or
frown of God, that ear to hear his approving or condemn-
ing voice ; that heart to reciprocate his love ! Here arc
spiritual and deathless powers, which, if they had never

13

been perverted, would have made him the object of God's
unchanging love. These too are the facuhies by which
God's Spirit communes with us and dwells within us, re-
fining our spirits, and in this our state of apostacy, subdu-
ing our selfishness and self will, restoring the lost image of
our heavenly Father, and bringing our weak and fallen
nature into full conformity to Christ's glorious person.
And the superior degree of these powers has been possessed
in a thousand instances to one of intellectual power. The
solemn conflicts with passion and temptation, the victory
over self, the adherance to duty amidst scorn and abandon-
ment, the lofty hopes, the calm reliance on God, the weak-
ness and patience under injuries, the fortitude and courage
of pious men and women ; Oh, these are greater things
than crowns and sceptres, greater than genius, greater than
any and all things else on earth. What is greater in man
than Hope, when it takes the faithfulness of God for its
assurance, and with smiling visage and brilliant eye, lays
a strong hand upon the everlasting promises ! How clear
is the vision of that eye that looks undazzled and undi-
verted upon the throne of God, claims no less than a pos-
session amidst those celestial fields and glorious mansions,
a companionship with the princes of heaven, and to be a
brother to him who occupies the throne. Is there any
thing out of heaven more truly excellent than the mild
virtues of such women as Mary, the mother of our Lord,
Lady Russell, and the Dairyman's Daughter ? I know
nothing sweeter than the youth and the early piety of
President Edwards. It was eminently a combination of
the highest form of intellectual, spiritual, and domestic
life. His first religious exercises are pure, meek, quiet,
humble, and yet exalted to a degree truly angelical. You
cannot read a few pages at the commencement of his diary,
without feeling a heavenly atmosphere around your soul.
And our idea of these mental powers thus sanctified will
be enlarged by surveying their influence on society. It is

14

seen in the domestic circle, where woman sheds a pure
and gentle Uyht on her own Httle em{)ire, malving home to
every inmate the dearest |)lace on eartli. It is seen in the
imniense influence wrought by the formers and reformers
of society ; in the silent and gentle labors of the pious
teacher, or in the mighty etforis of Luther and many mod-
ern missionaries, of the men who wrote what has been
well styled the martyr-literature of England, " character-
ized by a depth and seriousness of feeling, a direct and
powerftd flashing upon the soul, superior to any remains of
Greek literature." Here are the most admirable combina-
tions of the highest faculties.

By this superficial glance at the mind, as its powers have
been developed by many individuals in difl^erent ages of
the world, we may form some estimate of the worth of the
human intellect and heart, of your mental powers and of
mine as individuals.

We are now led to inquire into the causes of that gene-
ral neglect and undervaluing of the true riches and orna-
ments which every one possesses. That there is such
neglect and undervaluing, can scarcely need to be proved.
The evidence of it lies upon the very surface of society.
It is seen in the frivolous amusements to which those of
every class resort, not so much for the legitimate purpose
of relaxing minds that have been bent to their utmost, as
to prevent the mind from preying on itself. It is seen in
the style and topics of conversation ; in the class of books
and papers now most in demand ; in the solicitude of pa-
rents to have the course of education soon finished, and
their children out making their fortunes, and enjoying the
world ; in the habit of most young persons to abandon
the severe employment of the intellectual powers, imme-
diately on quitting the school, and finally, in the type of
piety most prevalent among the serious, which may be
characterized as desiring to make sure of happiness here-
after, rather than striving after the highest attainments in

15

holiness, and the most intimate communion with God now.
Here is the betrayal of an undervaluing of those distin-
guishing powers which God has conferred npon us, and
which may be trained to an indefinite extent ; and of a
disregard to those spiritual enjoyments of which man,
every man is ca[)able.

The root and origin of it all is, unquestionably, our
alienation from God. Having forsaken him as our portion,
his favor as our happiness, and his law as our standard, we
have fallen into many false notions and evil habits, which
go to confirm that alienation, by making us insensible to
the immensity of our loss. By departing from God, we
have sunk from the infinite to the finite, from the eternal
to the transient, from the elevated and pure and true, to
the low and vile and false. Tinsel and glare and baubles
liave come to content us wliom God made to be satisfied
with himself alone. Had man abode with God in the pos-
ture of a child, a pupil, a servant, a subject, then had God
kept in exercise all those powers which make man most
resemble God. Then had he taught us to despise all that
is trivial and superficial and low. As it is now, man has
fortified himself in this degraded state, that he may not be
discontented with it, nor made to rise higher. See how
strong his shield and fortresses are. There is indolence^
which dreads the struggle to arouse the soul and keep it
awake and active in the pursuit of great objects ; pride,
which refuses to be judged by a standard that exposes our
defects ; ignorance which keeps us unaccpiainted with the-
powers we are thus neglecting to cultiv^ate and exercise.
And then we are creatures of fashion ; that is, we estimate
as valuable and important what the world estimates so ;
we have come even to despise that enthusiasm which is
the soul of greatness, as it gives the soul an infinitely more
worthy object of pursuit than self. And even very many
converted men have regarded piety as something else than
actual, ardent, active love to God and men.

16

Let us then for a moment turn to the consequences of
this neglect. They may be summed up in these — mental
slavery, poverty, waste, misery, hurtfulness and irreparable
loss. There is no slavery so pitiable as that of the mind;
and no abolitionists should be so earnest as those who
would break these chains. There is the slavery of fash-
ionable life, which may be described as the pursuit of
excitement that costs the intellect nothing, and as obedi-
ence to a code of laws issued by an unseen, unknown,
and utter tyrant. Some are born into this circle, and the
more to be pitied ; some are attracted to it by its arrogant
pretensions to superiority, refinement and knowledge of
the world. With all these, it is a system of slavery where
no one can choose the right, and govern himself by sound
reason and an enlightened conscience, where none dares to
be serious or earnest, except about trifles. There is the
slavery of political life and of party, whether in church,
state, reform, or any where else. There is a humiliating
want of the manly exercise of a true independence. The
majority of our people have but exchanged masters. With
all their Fourth of July noise and flags and speeches and
toasts, there is an exceeding want both of ability, and de-
sire and courage to be free. To be able to be independent,
and to desire and dare to be independent, requires a true
knowledge of our individual worth and responsibility, a
true conquest of ourselves, and a full submission to God.
With all our boast of freedom and intelligence, there is a
vast deal of puppetism among us ; men pulled by wires
that others hold. And it is a worse feature of society even
than this, that when we undertake to be free, we bungle
and stumble and make such sad work, that in very shame
and disappointment, like the French people, we swing
from Louis XVL to Napoleon I. There is in the world
much unquietness and dissatisfaction with slavery. That
is well, so far as it goes, as a commencement, the very
faintest commencement of a healthful pulsation. We do

17

not yet know how to be free ; for freedom requires a true
estimate of ourselves, a love of submission to all right-
ful authority, and a desire to use our powers for their le-
gitimate purposes. This ignorance and under-estimate of
ourselves moreover makes us poor. And nothing shows
mental poverty more clearly than the ordinary commerce
of conversation. Rich nations and rich merchants traffic
in costly, substantial, elegant, valuable merchandize. And
so do rich minds. But what a petty traffic do the chief
part of mankind keep up with one another. Suppose
the conversation of one day to be written down and
printed, and submitted to the inspection of angels, nay,
of men themselves ; what could they think of but
Vanity-fair? Tinselled ware, glass diamonds, -poisonous
stimulants, worn-out articles, thread-bare garments for
the spirit, yea, even the garbage of slander ; such is
the stock in trade of that vast busy throng in the city,
the village, the highway. Here and there is one who
knows the worth of speech, and enriches himself and
others by all his intercourse. There are only a few who
talk to any good purpose. There are few whose conver-
sation does not betray a total suspension of all their sub-
limer faculties ; who are not mere automatons to keep in
motion the common places of the day. Another conse-
quence of this neglect is that waste of mind which was
so well described here two years ago.* Men would not
waste their time nor their mental power, if they knew the
worth of both these treasures. But when they have made
outward and material things to constitute the chief good
which their souls pursue and cherish, to these outward
things they must give themselves, because the heart
will be where the treasure is ; and then we have the
rushing and scrambling for perishable riches and human
honors and ephemeral pleasures. The shrewd, calculating
faculty, the lower intellectual power, the selfish, the ani-

In an Address by Prof. Hitchcock.

3

mal, are brought vigorously into exercise ; while all that
is truly elevated slumbers and dwindles, and finally per-
ishes of inanition. Here is thus, in the course of each
human life so spent, an incalculable, an irreparable loss.
No numbers can express it. What the man might have
been and done, and what he is and has done, are at an
immeasurable distance from each other. He, the commu-
nity, the universe have sufiered more than if thousands of
merely material worlds were annihilated. And there has
been too through the whole course, an amount of hurtful-
ness which we should not overlook. He has helped to
make others estimate themselves and worldly good and
true excellence just as falsely as he has done. And withal,
this ignorance and neglect is a source of much of the
misery of man. Is the mountain-eagle happy in a cage ?
He may eat and sleep there ; but his wings, where are
they, and of what use ; and where that strong eye made
to gaze upon the sun ? Alas, it grows dim in the darkness
of its prison. It has been a long experiment this — to be
happy without employing the whole mind, and without
exercising the heart in its purest and best sensibilities. It
has forever failed. If man was made for knowledge, for
truth, to scale its steep mountains and dig into its deep
mines, if he was made for God and his love, if for benevo-
lence, active, self-denying, laborious, constant, then you
cannot make hiin happy in substituting for this, the gath-
ering of dollars, the keeping, nor the expending them on
himself; then amusements, then ease and indolence, then
the world in any form, and selfishness at its best estate
cannot save him from misery. And it is painful to see
how many people are being educated to be miserable.
How hard men toil, how patient and persevering they are,
only to get a more honorable or fashionable or luxurious
kind of misery !

And is there no remedy ? We believe there is, and
therefore we speak.

19

That is, there are certain points toward vvliich we may
direct our course, with the reasonable hope of reaching a
higher position than we have yet attained. Tlie first is
that endlessly improvable matter :

Education. Every body feels that they have a right
to complain of it, and we must have our share, for our
hint may be useful somewhere. We say ; the faculties
ought all to be trained. These superior capacities of
which w^e have spoken, are mostly either entirely neglect-
ed or very superficially regarded in our systems of instruc-
tion and mental discipline. We remark for instance, this
radical defect, that whatever may be the subject of study,
the motives actuating the pupil are not generally attended
to with sufficient care. The motive or the reason for
doing any thing is that which constitutes the whole of
character. And when the heart of a pupil is actuated
only by the lower class of motives, every page he studies,
every step he advances under the influence of those mo-
tives, increases at once his intellectual strength and his
moral depravity. Imagine all the motives which may
actuate the human mind to be arranged in the order of
their excellence, making a scale somewhat in this wise.
Lowest of all is selfishness, or the desire to secure self-
gratification at the expense or neglect of others' happiness.
This is the essence of sin. Then there is a class that in
themselves have no moral character, only as they are con-
trolled by the benevolent or selfish principle. They are,
the desire of self-approbation — the love of approbation —
the love of knowledge — the love of achievement or suc-
cess— the love of power. Then come the holy motives
of — the desire to glorify God — the desire to please him —
the desire to make others happy and holy. It seems to
me that every parent and teacher ought to have an entire
familiarity \\n\X\ that scale of motives, a keen discernment
of the states of the mind in the exercise of each of them
respectively, an incessant and vigilant attention to motives

20

as they come into operation at every step and stage of
study. Tiiis lies at the root of education for usefuhiess,
for true greatness and for happiness ; for every time you
indulge a motive, you strengthen it. And again, we mean
by educating all the faculties, something very different
from going through a certain set of studies chiefly in refer-
ence to the acquisition of facts or principles instead of the
thorough and harmonious cultivation of the individual
faculties and susceptibilities. The course of study ought
to be selected mainly in reference to that. The human
mind may be compared to a watch out of order, and edu-
cation to the process of repairing. No two watches are to
receive the same treatment. The particular difficulty, de-
fect, derangement, excess or deficiency of each one is to
be discovered, and the process of reparation directed there.
Now much of our educating is like a watchmaker taking
a hundred watches and setting them in a row, and first
applying a file to them all, and then a hammer and then a
blow-pipe and then a screw-driver, because files and ham-
mers and blow-pipes and screw-drivers are all to come in
somewhere in horology. In fact the nobler powers, the
better feelings and faculties need to be aroused, while the
animal and the ignoble must be constantly checked in the
large majority of the youthful minds. In fact, one of the
most striking features of Edwards's experience is, that with
all his elevation of spirit, he found a constant effort neces-
sary to keep his better powers in action. Let a few speci-
mens suffice. We suppose that every child could be made
to feel more or less sympathy with nature or the works of
God, There are germs of poetry in every human heart,
and every human soul can be made to love flowers and
stars and fields and woods, because they are all unmingled
beauty and untainted by sin, and friendly to self-knowledge,
to benevolence and purity and communion with God.
Let the cultivation of that feeling command the best ef-
forts of the first talents, while the germs of poetry and

21

eloquence are thus cherished, and the habit of self-com-
munion is formed. The sublime and the beautiful in
matter and mind can be held before the youthful eye
under the discriminating remarks and the animated feel-
ings of the teacher until the love of beauty, the quick
appreciation of the true, the simple, the grand in nature,
in man and in God, together with the deep abhorrence of
deformity, defilement and meanness become fundamental
elements of the character. We would dwell upon the
formation in the youthful mind of a love of history and of
a discriminating judgment of character and events — a cor-
rect taste and judgment concerning literature, so necessary
now, — the formation of a due estimate of the value of
their own powers, and the importance of cultivating them —
the pure love of knowledge and of mental effort — the ad-
miration of God's attributes, and (we speak simply of
what every teacher should incessantly aim to accomplish
under the divine blessing) an ardent, childlike love of his
character — the admiration of the soul as it was manifested
in Christ's human nature, and as it will become in every
regenerated spirit — the deep sympathy of the heart for
man in his present position and prospects — the full com-
prehension of what we may do for his everlasting well-
being.

In addition to this positive course, we suggest the check-
ing false tendencies ; the correction of prejudices and
error which are early formed, and which exceedingly in-
jure the mind and heart ; the checking and chastening of
the exuberant imagination which early gives a wrong di-
rection to the whole character.

We would suggest another general view on the subject
of Education ; that it should aim to prepare the pupil for
real life ; to meet and mingle not with fairies and angels
and blue beards, but just such erring, feeble, prejudiced,
fickle, selfish, suftering people as fill the world and make
up society. Children are deceived by their imaginations,

and, remain undeceived and untaught by their teachers, as
to the kind of the world they hve in, the kind of people
they are to mingle with, yes, and the kind of beings they
themselves are. The single habit of questioning in every
case of difficulty with another, whether I am not wrong,
is worth more than a pile of classic authors stowed in the
mind of a self -conceited, irritable scholar. True, much
must be learned by experience ; yet the teacher should
keep the real world in view in the whole course of train-
ing. To know how to treat every human being with
whom we have intercourse is not put down on college
catalogues ; but if I had a son, I should prefer to send him
a fifth year to a competent professor of that important and
attainable art. How much of human happiness depends
on conversation ! And conv^ersation is as truly an art as
writing or medical practice. Now we ask ; where is it
taught ? Education too should prepare the mind for the
world as a scene of temptation and probation. Education
should educate both sexes, but chiefly woman for home.
That is her empire. She is mainly responsible for its
prosperity, its peace, its moral riches, its order, its splendor.
Music has its place, its important place there, and is indis-
pensable to the highest governance of the domestic em-
pire. Let it be remembered however, that the tongue is
employed more hours than the piano ; and if she can
learn to play well on only one, let it be the former. Our
.views of education would embrace an anticipation that
the pupils are to be loyal subjects of Christ's kingdom,
members of his visible church and heirs of his glory, and
aim to qualify them for the highest stations in all these, of
which they may be capable. This impression must be
deepest in the teacher's heart. If it be not, he will fail
to educate aright.

Our second remedy is in Home Education. At home
the great work of forming the character is chiefly to be
done. And the world will continue to go wrong and be

23

wrong, until the duties of the parental office are better
understood and more faithfully discharged. There the
finer social feelings, the delicate sense of propriety, the
respect for age, the submission to authority, the study of
mutual happiness, the attention to the lesser wants of
others, the constant anticipation of their changing necessi-
ties and feelings, the habit of fulfilling the duties of the
most important relations of life are all to be cherished.

Our last proposed remedy is the promoting religious
faith. There was never greatness of any kind without
some kind of faith. Skepticism is spiritual death. Its
brilliant intellect is the rotten-wood glow that scares and
amuses children. Heartlessness is not the glory of man.
To know so much as to believe nothing is not greatness,
but meanness. All poetry, all science, all philosophy, all
loveliness, require faith. And religious faith is the highest
form. It beholds and loves and trusts and fears God, a
Being of infinite greatness. The problems which it solves
are connected with his plans and purposes ; the hope
which it indulges is the inspiration of his truth. The
glories to which it aspires are both pure and eternal, and
so are its treasures, its friendships and its dwelling-place.
Its study is chiefly the mystery of Redemption. These
are the occupations of the intellect and the heart. Its
love is chiefly exercised on the infinite excellence of God,
Its hatred is concentrated on the odiousness of sin. Man
in the unestimated value of his soul, in his exposure to an
eternal evil and his capacity for an endless happiness, is
the object of its sympathy. Prayer is its highest employ-
ment. Reasoning with God, persuading God, and work-
ing in harmony with God, such is religious faith. Its
struggles arc with a depraved heart ; its aspirings are after
perfect holiness. The animosity of the believer is mainly
directed against the defects in his own character. For
other men he has charity, compassion, forbearance, sympa-
thy. Such is the true believer. There are no trifles in

24

his life. "When he unbends, it is the bird of heaven gath-
ering strength for another and loftier flight. I do not say-
how many such behevers are now in the world. I say-
there are such ; there must be more, more by hundreds of
milhons, and when they come, there will be more real
greatness, more varied loveUness, more mental power,
more pure happiness, than the world has ever seen. World-
liness in all its forms is skepticism, and skepticism is
hollow, weak, poor. Faith in the great realities of the
revelation of God makes a man, a nation truly great and
truly lovely. I admit that there have never been many
periods of the revival of religious faith when its true influ-
ence was exhibited on a broad scale. Such a day however
was seen throughout Central Europe, when Martin Luther
began to be a true believer. His faith struck a light to
guide millions up from the damp, dark caverns of supersti-
tion into a lovely day of liberty and holy fellowship with
Christ, Such a day was seen when a baptism of the
Spirit came upon England, and its intellect put on the
loveliest and the loftiest forms it has ever assumed. It
has been well said that " no one can have shrines erected
to his memory in the hearts of the men of distant genera-
tions, unless his own heart was an altar on which daily
sacrifices of fervent devotion and magnanimous self-denial
"were ofl'ered to the only true object of human worship."

This has been too much overlooked, that an essential
element of greatness is self-restraint, self-renunciation ;
and that nothing secures self-renunciation but faith.
How can skepticism carry one out of himself, when its
very nature is the exaggeration of self? Man must be-
lieve in something, must love something, must pursue
some chief interest. And when that something is self,
and that interest is self-interest, there is skepticism.
Faith is its antagonist. It is the generous believing, con-
fiding in God as infinitely more real and excellent than
self, in God's glory as infinitely more worthy of pursuit

25

than anything connected with self. Faith in the incar-
nation of the Son of God, in his substitution for man be-
fore the law, in his vicarious humiliation and suffering and
sacrifice, is the strongest power to lift man to the dignity
and purity and loveliness of self-renunciation. The cardi-
nal doctrine of the world in its selfishness and skepticism,
is this — suflering, obscurity, contempt of men are the
great evils of life. Hence as the paths of duty and glory
lie generally with us, as with Jesus, through shame and
sorrow, these are forsaken paths. Hence, as the greatest
stimulant to the human intellect is not found in the petty
objects connected with self, a large portion of every one's
power lies undeveloped and paralyzed under the deadening
influence of selfishness and skepticism. Hence, as selfish-
ness is out of harmony with truth, the soul must be kept
in the fetters of prejudice and falsehood and half-truths
and contradictions and absurdities. Ah ! here is the waste
of mind. It may occur to some that men without faith
have displayed the most entire self-renunciation in com-
mercial and military and scientific pursuits. We admit it,
and call your attention to two considerations. In the ma-
jority of cases, they would have acknowledged their zeal
to terminate on self, so that there was no self-renunciation.
And their very zeal for science and victory and wealth
was an imitation of faith which renounces a present sen-
sible interest for one unseen and distant. And if any one
should suppose that this form of selfishness and of skepti-
cism as to nobler ends has developed as much mental
power as faith, let it be suggested that selfishness may
arouse the active powers, and sustain their active exercise.
Mere activity however is not sufficient for the accomplish-
ment of the most important ends of life. Let us refer
to two eminent military men for confirmation. John
Churchill the Duke of Marlborough, under Q.ueen Anne,
who preserved the Protestant powers of Europe from the
grasp of Louis XIY. and the Jesuits, was a man of faith
4

26

and prayer. His military talents were of the first order.
His name was a terror to the French armies. But there
were junctures in that terrible period when mere military
talent would have proved utterly insufficient. The Dutch
government was jealous, selfish and narrow ; the English
fiiction created by French gold was very powerful. And
had Marlborough's military zeal originated in selfishness,
or even loyalty, it could not have endured the fiery trials
to which his spirit was exposed. His presence and unre-
mitted labors had become indispensable to the preservation
of European liberty and the Protestant cause. Just at
that period his enemies succeeded in destroying his reputa-
tion at home, and in diminishing his military resources on
the continent. Nothing but his pure faith in God saved
him then from either turning traitor or abandoning his post.
But he labored still, just as if England appreciated and
Holland sustained him. He was one of the master spirits
of the Christian era ; and his character derived its strength
and beauty from his faith in God. The same seems to us
true of Washington, whose position and trials and conduct
were remarkably similar to Marlborough's.

We have placed this point last, because we would
have it left last upon the memory. The human powers
are wasted by unbelief. Human labor is lost by toiling
for perishing good. The richest endowments, the most
glorious capacities are withered and wasted under the.
chilling frosts of unbelief. Human society is full of
heartlessness and frivolity, because men do not believe
God's testimony, and so know not what to live for, rob-
bing the afi'ections of their legitimate objects, and cramp-
ing the soul to a sphere too narrow for its ethereal powers.

Look then from the elevated position of man's immortal
endowments to the world at large, and to the condition of
individual minds. Why is there not everywhere a rush
to the rescue of mind from its degradation ! Alas, a rush
will not save it. Patient, steady, humble, earnest work

27

and prayer are alone availing. Count the millions of the
human race who know nothing of the powers that slum-
ber within them. They walk hke the inhabitants of a
gold region, careless and poor over a soil full of the most
precious materials. And will no one go to arouse them
to a sense and consciousness of their own dignity and im-
mortal value ? Yes, some are going, more are going ; and
we must continue steadily with growing zeal to aid them.
And at home we must prize more the individual soul, and
labor to bring it forth to the exercise of all those wonder-
ful powers which God has conferred upon it. We have
come together to-day to study anew the science of mental
mineralogy, to contemplate anew the hidden treasures of
the mind. And since we find that the roughest specimen
may contain the most precious qualities ; that no work is
so important as the working out and polishing that precious
material ; and that nothing can be more for the glory of
God, the good of our country and individual happiness,
let us give ourselves to this great work, by God's help.
We see that general education may be improved, that
domestic education is an indispensable instrument of ele-
vating mankind, and that the promotion of a living faith
is necessary for securing to God that revenue of glory
which is his due, and to man that blessedness for which
he was created. Our task is then before us; in God's
strength let us do it. And as we see that the institution
whose anniversary has convened us, is accomplishing all
these objects with growing success ; let us praise God,
take courage, and cherish the Mount Holyoke Seminary.

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