70 DIALOGUE. 



their own township, and, ignorant of the improvements made in cultiva- 

 ting the soil and forming manures in other places, fancy that they raise 

 the best wheat and are the best farmers in the world. But, let these 

 sciolists become truly learned, let them dive down into the secrets of 

 God''s works beneath, and soar upwards to behold the glory and majesty 

 of his works on high, and look into the mysteries of their own nature, 

 and the character of God, and they will soon be deeply humbled ; and 

 they will be prepared, with the great Sir Isaac Newton, to exclaim, "that 

 they are l)ut children walking on the shore of the great ocean, here and 

 there picking up a pebble more beautiful than tlie rest." No, the true 

 scholar is humble and devout, the least extravagant in his notions, and 

 the most distrustful of his powers ; for the higher he soars in his in- 

 vestigations after truth, the wider and more extended are his prospects, 

 the more multiplied and glorious the objects ; and. consequently, the 

 more ignorant and insignificant must he himself appear. You mistake, 

 then, very much, if you suppose that learning makes men proud ; only 

 consider the character of your minister and that of others, whose learn- 

 ing has been of service to you, and tell me, whether they are proud. 



Equally groundless is the charge of indolence. It is true, students 

 are not employed in manual labor as the farmer and mechanic, neither 

 indeed would it be possible, in all cases, or in most cases, to combine 

 labor and study. Isolated cases there have been, as that of old father 

 Carey, the first baptist missisonary to India, who, between the stitches 

 he made in the shoes he was mending, managed to pick up a knowledge 

 of the Latin and Greek grammars, and improved in theology so rapidly 

 that he was ordained to the work of the ministry, and finally obtained 

 the honorary degree of D. D. 



If you have any doubts concerning the industry of the Students in 

 our College and Theological Seminary, they must vanish, at the sight 

 of the works which have been accomplished, within the last year. They 

 have made not less than a mile of the most substantial walk that can 

 be found any where. They generally saw their own wood, and the 

 vacations are mostly spent in the most active and industrious manner, so 

 that some of them, whose means are limited, make money enough to 

 sustain them during the following session. But, laying aside consider- 

 ations of this sort, the peculiar and appropriate labor of the Student is 

 not that of the body, but of the mind. Here, I think, the industry even 

 of the farmer is much inferior to that of the Student. Mental effort, 

 ])liysicians tell us, is much more debilitating than bodily. The proof of 

 this is obvious in the pale and lean face of the Student, whilst his neigh- 

 bor, whose efibrts are only those of tlic body, is ruddy and vigorous. 



