dismal swamp in which we are prisoners is but an infinitely small
portion of his universe, that there do exist all those goodly forms
which we fancied; and more, when God declares too that we were in the
first instance designed to enjoy them; that our error brought us into
the thicket, having been once out of it; that we may escape from it
again; nay, much more still, when He shows us the true path to escape,
and tells us, that the obstacles in our way have been cleared, and that
he will give us strength to accomplish, the task of escaping, and will
guide us that we do not miss the track; then what shall we say to those
who insist upon, remaining where they are, but that they are either
infatuated, or indolent and cowardly even to insanity; that they are
refusing certain salvation, and are, by their own act, giving themselves
over to inevitable death.
This, then, is the truth taught us by the doctrine of the Fall; not so
much that it is our certain destruction to remain where we are, for that
our own sense and reason declare to us, if we will but listen to them;
but that our present position is not that for which God designed us, and
that to rest satisfied with it is not a yielding to an unavoidable
necessity, but the indolently or madly shrinking from the effort which
would give us certain deliverance.
Now it is a part of our present evil condition from which we must
escape, that we know good and evil. We are in the world where evil
exists within us, and about us; we cannot but know it. True it is, that
it was our misfortune to become acquainted with it; this noisome
wilderness of reeds, this reeking swamp; it would have been far happier
for us, no doubt, had we never become aware of their existence. But that
wish is now too late. We are in the midst of this dismal place, and the
question now is, how to escape from it. We may shut our eyes, and say we
will not see objects so unsightly; but what avails it, if the marsh
poison finds its way by other senses, if we cannot but draw it in with
our breath, and so we must die? And such is the case of those who now
in this present world confound ignorance with innocence. This is a fatal
mistaking of our present condition for our past; there was a time when
to the human race ignorance was innocence; but now it is only folly and
sin. For as I supposed that a man lost in one of those noxious swamps
might shut his eyes, and so keep himself in some measure in ignorance,
yet the poison would be taken in with his breath, and so he would die:
even thus, whilst we would fain shut the eyes of our understanding, and
would so hope to be in safety, our passions are all the time alive and
active, and they catch the poison of the atmosphere around us, and we
are not innocent, but foolishly wicked.
We must needs consider this carefully; for, to say nothing of wider
questions of national importance, who that sees before him, as we must
see it, the gradual change from childhood to boyhood, who that sees
added knowledge often accompanied with added sin, can help wishing that
the earlier ignorance of evil might still be continued; and fancying
that knowledge is at best but a doubtful blessing?
But our path is not backwards, but onwards. Israel in the desert was
hungry and thirsty, while in Egypt he had eaten bread to the full;
Israel in the desert saw a wide waste of sand, or sandy rock, around
him, while in Egypt he had dwelt in those green pastures and watered
gardens to which the Nile had given freshness and life. But that
wilderness is his appointed way to Canaan; its dreariness must be
exchanged for the hills and valleys of Canaan, and must not drive him
back again to the low plain of Egypt. There is a moral wilderness which
lies in the early part of our Christian course; but we must not hope to
escape from it but by penetrating through it to its furthest side.
Undoubtedly this place, and other similar places, which receive us when
we have quitted the state of childhood, and before our characters are
formed in manhood, do partake somewhat of the character of the
wilderness; and it is not unnatural that many should shrink back from
them in fear. We see but too often the early beauty of the character
sadly marred, its simplicity gone, its confidence chilled, its
tenderness hardened; where there was gentleness, we see roughness and
coarseness; where there was obedience, we find murmuring, and self-will,
and pride; where there was a true and blameless conversation, we find
now something of falsehood, something of profaneness, something of
impurity. I can well conceive what it must be to a parent to see his
child return from school, for the first time, with the marks of this
grievous change upon him: I can well conceive how bitterly he must
regret having ever sent him to a place of so much, danger; how fondly he
must look back to the days of his early innocence. And if a parent feels
thus, what must be our feelings, seeing that this evil has been wrought
here? Are we not as those who, when pretending to give a wholesome
draught, have mixed the cup with poison? How can we go on upholding a
system, the effects of which appear to be so merely mischievous?
Believe me, that such questions must and ought to present themselves to
the mind of every thinking man who is concerned in the management of a
school: and I do think that we could not answer them satisfactorily,
that our work would absolutely be unendurable, if we did not bear in
mind that our eyes should look forward, and not backward; if we did not
remember that the victory of fallen man is to be sought for, not in
innocence, but in tried virtue. Comparing only the state of a boy after
his first half-year, or year, at school, with his earlier state as a
child, and our reflections on the evil of our system would be bitter
indeed; but when we compare a boy's state after his first half-year, or
year, at school, with what it is afterwards; when we see the clouds
again clearing off; when we find coarseness succeeded again by delicacy;
hardness and selfishness again broken up, and giving place to affection
and benevolence; murmuring and self-will exchanged for humility and
self-denial; and the profane, or impure, or false tongue, uttering again
only the words of truth and purity; and when we see that all these good
things are now, by God's grace, rooted in the character; that they have
been tried, and grown up amidst the trial; that the knowledge of evil
has made them hate it the more, and be the more aware of it; then we can
look upon our calling with patience, and even with thankfulness; we see
that the wilderness has been gone through triumphantly, and that its
dangers have hardened and strengthened the traveller for all his
remaining pilgrimage.
For the truth is, that to the knowledge of good and evil we are born;
and it must come upon us sooner or later. In the common course of
things, it comes about that age with which we are here most concerned. I
do not mean that there are not faults in early childhood--we know that
there are;--but we know also that with the strength and rapid growth of
boyhood there is a far greater development of these faults, and
particularly far less of that submissiveness which belonged naturally to
the helplessness of mere childhood. I suppose that, by an extreme care,
the period of childhood might be prolonged considerably; but still it
must end; and the knowledge of good and evil, in its full force, must
come. I believe that this must be; I believe that no care can prevent
it, and that an extreme attempt at carefulness, whilst it could not
keep off the disorder, would weaken the strength, of the constitution to
bear it. But yet you should never forget, and I should never forget,
that although the evils of schools in some respects must be, yet, in
proportion as they exceed what must be, they do become at once
mischievous and guilty. And such, or even worse, is the mischief when,
with the evil which must be, there is not the good which ought to be;
for, remember, our condition is to know good and evil. If we know only
evil, it is the condition of hell; and therefore, if schools present an
unmixed experience, if there is temptation in abundance, but no support
against temptation, and no examples of overcoming it; if some are losing
their child's innocence, but none, or very few, are gaining a man's
virtue; are we in a wholesome state then? or can we shelter ourselves
under the excuse that our evil is unavoidable, that we do but afford, in
a mild form, the experience which must be learned sooner or later? It is
here that we must be acquitted or condemned. I can bear to see the
overclouding of childish simplicity, if there is a reasonable hope that
the character so clouded for a time will brighten again into Christian
holiness. But if we do not see this, if innocence is exchanged only for
vice, then we have not done our part, then the evil is not unavoidable,
but our sin: and we may be assured, that for the souls so lost, there
will be an account demanded hereafter both of us and you.
LECTURE II.
* * * * *
1 CORINTHIANS xiii. 11.
_When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away
childish things_.
Taking the Apostle's words literally, it might appear that no words in
the whole range of Scripture were less applicable to the circumstances
of this particular congregation: for they speak of childhood and of
manhood; and as all of us have passed the one, so a very large
proportion of us have not yet arrived at the other. But when we consider
the passage a little more carefully, we shall see that this would be a
very narrow and absurd objection. Neither the Apostle, nor any one else,
has ever stepped directly from childhood into manhood; it was his
purpose here only to notice the two extreme points of the change which
had taken place in him, passing over its intermediate stages; but he,
like all other men, must have gone through those stages. There must have
been a time in his life, as in all ours, when his words, his thoughts,
and his understanding were neither all childish, nor all manly: there
must have been a period, extending over some years, in which they were
gradually becoming the one less and less, and the other more and more.
And as it suited the purposes of his comparison to look at the change in
himself only when it was completed, so it will suit our object here to
regard it while in progress, to consider what it is, to ask the two
great questions, how far it can be hastened, and how far it ought to
be hastened.
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish
things." It will be seen at once, that when the Apostle speaks of
thought and understanding, ([Greek: erronoun elogizomeaen],) he does not
mean the mere intellect but all the notions, feelings, and desires of
our minds, which partake of an intellectual and of a moral character
together. He is comparing what we should call the whole nature and
character of childhood with those of manhood. Let us see, for a moment,
in what they most strikingly differ.
Our Lord's well-known words suggest a difference in the first place,
which is in favour of childhood. When he says, "Except ye be converted,
and become as little children, ye can in no case enter into the kingdom
of heaven," he must certainly ascribe some one quality to childhood, in
which manhood is generally deficient. And the quality which he means is
clearly humility; or to speak perhaps more correctly, teachableness. It
is impossible that a child can have that confidence in himself, which
disposes him to be his own guide. He must of necessity lean on others,
he must follow others, and therefore he must believe others. There is in
his mind, properly speaking, nothing which can be called prejudice; he
will not as yet refuse to listen, as thinking that he knows better than
his adviser. One feeling, therefore, essential to the perfection of
every created and reasonable being, childhood has by the very law of its
nature; a child cannot help believing that there are some who are
greater, wiser, better than himself, and he is disposed to follow
their guidance.
This sense of comparative weakness is founded upon truth, for a child
is of course unfit to guide himself. Without noticing mere bodily
helplessness, a child knows scarcely what is good and what is evil; his
desires for the highest good are not yet in existence; his moral sense
altogether is exceedingly weak, and would yield readily to the first
temptation. And, because those higher feelings, which are the great
check to selfishness, have not yet arisen within him, the selfish
instinct, connected apparently with all animal life, is exceedingly
predominant in him. If a child then on the one hand be teachable, yet he
is at the same time morally weak and ignorant, and therefore
extremely selfish.
It is also a part of the nature of childhood to be the slave of present
impulses. A child is not apt to look backwards or forwards, to reflect
or to calculate. In this also he differs entirely from the great quality
which befits man as an eternal being, the being able to look before
and after.
Not to embarrass ourselves with too many points, we may be content with
these four characteristics of childhood, teachableness, ignorance,
selfishness, and living only for the present. In the last three of
these, the perfect man should put away childish things; in the first
point, or teachableness, while he retained it in principle, he should
modify it in its application. For while modesty, humility, and a
readiness to learn, are becoming to men no less than to children; yet it
should be not a simple readiness to follow others, but only to follow
the wise and good; not a sense of utter helplessness which catches at
the first stay, whether sound or brittle; but such a consciousness of
weakness and imperfection, as makes us long to be strengthened by Him
who is almighty, to be purified by Him who is all pure.
I said, and it is an obvious truth, that the change from childhood to
manhood is gradual; there is a period in our lives, of several years,
in which we are, or should be, slowly exchanging the qualities of one
state for those of the other. During this intermediate state, then, we
should expect to find persons become less teachable, less ignorant, less
selfish, less thoughtless. "Less teachable," I would wish to mean, in
the sense of being "less indiscriminately teachable;" but as the evil
and the good are, in human things, ever mixed up together, we may be
obliged to mean "less teachable" simply. And, to say the very truth, if
I saw in a young man the changes from childhood in the three other
points, if I found him becoming wiser, and less selfish, and more
thoughtful, I should not be very much disturbed if I found him for a
time less teachable also. For whilst he was really becoming wiser and
better, I should not much wonder if the sense of improvement rather than
of imperfection possessed him too strongly; if his confidence in himself
was a little too over-weening. Let him go on a little farther in life,
and if he really does go on improving in wisdom and goodness, this
over-confidence will find its proper level. He will perceive not only
how much he is doing, or can do, but how much there is which he does not
do, and cannot. To a thoughtful mind added years can scarcely fail to
teach, humility. And in this the highest wisdom of manhood may be
resembling more and more the state of what would be perfect childhood,
that is, not simply teachableness, but tractableness with respect to
what was good and true, and to that only.
But the danger of the intermediate state between childhood and manhood
is too often this, that whilst in the one point of teachableness, the
change runs on too fast, in the other three, of wisdom, of
unselfishness, and of thoughtfulness, it proceeds much too slowly: that
the faults of childhood thus remain in the character, whilst
that quality by means of which these faults are meant to be
corrected,--namely, teachableness,--is at the same time diminishing.
Now, teachableness as an instinct, if I may call it so, diminishes
naturally with the consciousness of growing strength. By strength, I
mean strength of body, no less than strength of mind, so closely are our
body and mind connected with, each other. The helplessness of childhood,
which presses upon it every moment, the sense of inability to avoid or
resist danger, which makes the child run continually to his nurse or to
his mother for protection, cannot but diminish, by the mere growth of
the bodily powers. The boy feels himself to be less helpless than the
child, and in that very proportion he is apt to become less teachable.
As this feeling of decreased helplessness changes into a sense of
positive vigour and power, and as this vigour and power confer an
importance on their possessor, which is the case especially at schools,
so self-confidence must in one point at least, arise in the place of
conscious weakness; and as this point is felt to be more important, so
will the self-confidence be likely to extend itself more and more over
the whole character.
And yet, I am bound to say, that, in general, the teachableness of youth
is, after all, much greater than we might at first sight fancy. Along
with much self-confidence in many things, it is rare, I think, to find
in a young man a deliberate pride that rejects advice and instruction,
on the strength of having no need for them. And therefore, the faults of
boyhood and youth are more owing, to my mind, to the want of change in
the other points of the childish character, than to the too great change
in this. The besetting faults of youth appear to me to arise mainly from
its retaining too often the ignorance, selfishness, and thoughtlessness
of a child, and having arrived at the same time at a degree of bodily
vigour and power, equal, or only a very little inferior, to those
of manhood.
And in this state of things, the questions become of exceeding interest,
whether the change from childhood to manhood can be hastened. That it
ought to be hastened, appears to me to be clear; hastened, I mean, from
what it is actually, because in this respect, we do not grow in general
fast enough; and the danger of over-growth is, therefore, small.
Besides, where change of one sort is going on very rapidly; where the
limbs are growing and the bones knitting more firmly, where the strength
of bodily endurance, as well as of bodily activity, is daily becoming
greater; it is self-evident that, if the inward changes which ought to
accompany these outward ones are making no progress, there cannot but be
derangement and deformity in the system. And, therefore, when I look
around, I cannot but wish generally that the change from childhood to
manhood in the three great points of wisdom, of unselfishness, and of
thoughtfulness, might be hastened from its actual rate of progress in
most instances.
But then comes the other great question, "Can it be hastened, and if it
can, how is it to be done?" "Can it be hastened" means, of course, can
it be hastened healthfully and beneficially, consistently with the due
development of our nature in its after stages, from life temporal to
life eternal? For as the child should grow up into the man, so also
there is a term of years given in which, according to God's will, the
natural man should grow up into the spiritual man; and we must not so
press the first change as to make it interfere with the wholesome
working of the second. The question then is, really, can the change
from childhood to manhood be hastened in the case of boys and young men
in general from its actual rate of progress in ordinary cases, without
injury to the future excellence and full development of the man? that
is, without exhausting prematurely the faculties either of body or mind.
And this is a very grave question, one of the deepest interest for us
and for you. For us, as, according to the answer to be given to it,
should depend our whole conduct and feelings towards you in the matter
of your education; for you, inasmuch as it is quite clear, that if the
change from childhood to manhood can be hastened safely, it ought to be
hastened; and that it is a sin in every one not to try to hasten it:
because, to retain the imperfections of childhood when you can get rid
of them, is in itself to forfeit the innocence of childhood; to exchange
the condition of the innocent infant whom Christ blessed, for that of
the unprofitable servant whom Christ condemned. For with the growth of
our bodies evil will grow in us unavoidably; and then, if we are not
positively good, we are, of necessity, positively sinners.
We will consider, then, what can be done to hasten this change in us
healthfully; whether we can grow in wisdom, in love, and in
thoughtfulness, faster in youth, than we now commonly do grow: and
whether any possible danger can be connected with such increased
exertion. This shall be our subject for consideration next Sunday.
Meantime, let it be understood, that however extravagant it might be to
hope for any general change in any moral point, as the direct result of
setting truth before the mind; yet, that it never can be extravagant to
hope for a practical result in some one or two particular cases; and
that, if one or two even be impressed practically with what they hear,
the good achieved, or, rather, the good granted us by God, is really
beyond our calculation. It is so strictly; for who can worthily
calculate the value of a single human soul? but it is so in this sense
also, that the amount of general good which may be done in the end by
doing good first in particular cases is really more than we can
estimate. It was thus that Christ's original eleven apostles became, in
the end, the instruments of the salvation of millions: and it is on this
consideration that we never need despair of the most extensive
improvements in society, if we are content to wait God's appointed time
and order, and look for the salvation of the many as the gradual fruit
of the salvation of a few.
LECTURE III.
* * * * *
1 CORINTHIANS xiii. 11.
_When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away
childish things_.
After having noticed last Sunday what were those particular points in
childhood, which in manhood should be put away, and having observed that
this change cannot take place all at once, but gradually, during a
period of several years, I proposed to consider, as on this day, whether
it were possible to hasten this change, that is, whether it could be
hastened without injury to the future development of the character; for
undoubtedly, there is such, a thing in minds, as well as in bodies, as
precocious growth; and although it is not so frequent as precocious
growth in the body, nor by any means so generally regarded as an evil,
yet it is really a thing to be deprecated; and we ought not to adopt
such measures as might be likely to occasion it.