262 THOUGHTS IN A GEAVEL-PIT. [xi. 



certainty,, about the pits round here, I wish to tell you 

 to-night. 



But why ? You do not need, one in ten of you, to 

 know anything about gravel, unless you be highway 

 surveyor, or have a garden-walk to make ; and then 

 someone will easily tell you where the best gravel is 

 to be got, at so much a load. 



Very true ; but you come here to-night to instruct 

 yourselves ; that is, to learn, if you can, something 

 more about the world you live in ; something more 

 about God who made the world. 



And you come here to educate yourselves ; to ednce 

 and bring out your own powers of perceiving, judging, 

 reasoning ; to improve yourselves in the art of all 

 arts, which is, the art of learning. That is mental 

 education. 



Now if a gravel-pit will teach you a little about 

 these things, you will surely call it a rich gravel-pit. 

 If it helps you to wisdom, which is worth more than 

 gold ; which is the only way to get gold wisely, and 

 spend it wisely ; then we will call our pit no more a 

 gravel-pit, but a wisdom-pit, a mine of wisdom. 



Let us go out, then, in fancy (for it is too cold to 

 go out in person) to Hook Common, scramble down 

 into the first gravel-pit we come to, and see what we 

 can see. 



The first thing we see is a quantity of stones, more 

 or less rounded, lying in gravel and poor clay. 



Well what do those stones tell us ? 



These stones, as I told you when I addressed you 

 last, are ancient and venerable worthies. They have 

 seen a great deal in their time. They have had a 

 great deal of knocking about, and have stood it 



