104 ON THE EXPEDIENCY AND MEANS OF 



the highest possible perfection, the Deity may still descend and hold 

 converse with his creature, and lead him through the observation and 

 understanding of Nature, to the contemplation and worship of the di- 

 vine holiness.* But this intelligence has another and nearer applica- 

 tion, and herein, too, the similitude between the creature and the cre- 

 ator is obvious that as the attributes of the Deity are subject to 

 intelligence, so the human virtues, which are the infinitely remote 

 shadows of the divine, should be submissive to that " wisdom which 

 cometh from above," that virtue should not arise from a brief and 

 precarious impulse, but from an actuative principle in the soul — " a 

 new command give I unto you, that ye love one another." But how 

 shall this law be fulfilled, when the image of God languishes fainter 

 and fainter in the soul ? for comparatively with his ignorance man 

 degenerates, and in his debasement secedes farther and farther from 

 the divine similitude. The translation of exalted intelligences into the 

 " sanctities of heaven" is the declared object of mortal probation. 

 Created with an inquisitive faculty, man begins in infancy the process 

 of adaptation, taught by the Great Teacher himself through the in- 

 stinctive and educative faculty of his being, ascending from the unerr- 

 able acquirements of first truths, to the comprehension of truths 

 natural and revealed ; until, refining more and more from the gross- 

 ness of earth in his approachable resemblance to God, exhibiting in 

 the two extremes of child-like simplicity and exalted intelligence, the 

 perfection of humanity. " For the end of learning is to repair the 

 ruin of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright, and out 

 of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him, as 

 we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which, 

 being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest 

 perfection ,"t 



Scarcely subsidiary to this divine purpose, but indeed correlative 

 with it, is the relation and duty of man to man, how and in what 

 manner he shall advance the well-being and happiness of all man- 

 kind, recognizing in each individual the fullest extension of the di- 



• Menschenbildung in ihrer VoUendung ist das Ideal wornach wir stre- 

 ben, von dem wir aber mit Paulus sagen : nicht dass ichs schon ergrifFen 

 habe und voUkommen sey ; ich jage ihm aber nach, auf dass ergreifen 

 mochte.— Wocchenschriff fur Menschenbildung. — Education in its perfection 

 is the ideal after which we strive, of which we might say, with Paul, " Not 

 as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow 

 after, if that I might apprehend." 



t Milton. 



