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CONCLUSION, PAOC 1 7 . 28 . 45 . 65 io;j J 20 141 147 162 173 178 183 198 257 ^70 292 303 I PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. In this new edition of "How to Succeed in Life," I have re-written entirely the part dealing with the genuineness of the Gospels in the light of the most recent criticism on the subject, and especially the confident statements as to the later origin of all the four Gospels made by the author of "Supernatural Religion/' With no pretensions to deal in such a volume with the details of this author's argument, I think I have pointed out sufficiently how little the course of his argument affects the originality of the sub- stantial evidence for ♦^he supernatural origin of Christianity. Here, as throughout, I have sought to state the case with perfect candour and impartiality — in short, to take the reader into my confidence, and (as I hope) to give him some real assistance in coming to a right conclu- vi PREFACE, .'>ion. Dictation in such matters can do no good on one side or the other. Every one who wishes to have an intelligent opinion must look at the facts so far for himself, and form his own judg- ment. I have simply tried to help the young reader in doing^this. J.T. INTRODUCTION. opening man- I mended itself HERE is a charm ' hood which ha.^ to the imagination m every age. The undefined hopes and promises of the future — the dawning strength of intellect — the vigorous flow of passion — the very exchange of home ties and protected joys for free and manly pleasures, give to this period an interest and excitement unfelt, perhaps, at any other. It is the beginning of life in the sense of independent and self-supporting action. Hitherto life has been to boys, as to girls, a derivative and dependent existence — a sucker from the parent growth- a home discipline A INTRODUCTION, of authority and guidance and communicated impulse. But henceforth it is a transplanted growth of its own — a new and free power of activity, in which the mainspring is no longer authority or law from without, but principle or opinion from within. The shoot which has been nourished under the shelter of the parent stem, and bent according to its inclination, is trans- ferred to the open world, where of its own im- pulse and character ib must take root, and grow into strength, or sink into weakness and vice. There is a natural pleasure in such a change. The sense of freedom is always joyful, at least at first. The mere consciousness of awakening powers and prospective work touches with ela- tion the youthful breast. But to every right -hearted youth this time must be also one of severe trial. Anxiety must greatly dash its pleasure. There must be regrets behind, and uncertainties before. The thought of home must excite a pang even in the first moments of freedom. Its glad shelter — its kindly guidance — its very restraints, how dear and tender must they seem in parting ! How brightly must they shine in the retrospect as the youth turns from them to the hardened and unfamiliar face of the world ! With what a sweet, sadly-cheering pathos must they linger in the memory ! And then what chance and hazard is there in his newly -gotten freedom) INTRODUCTION, What instincts of warning in its very novelty and dim inexperience ! What possibilities otf failure as well as of success in the unknown future as it stretches before him I Serious thoughts like these more frequently underlie the careless neglect of youth than is supposed. They do not shew themselves, or seldom do; but they work deeply and quietly. Even in the boy who seems all absorbed in amusements or tasks there is frequently a secret life of intensely serious consciousness which keeps questioning with itself as to the meaning of what is going on around him and what may be before him — which projects itself into the future, and rehearses the responsibilities and ambitions of his career. Certainly there is a grave importance as well as a pleasant charm in the beginning of life. There is awe as well as excitement in it, when rightly viewed. The possibilities that lie in it of noble or ignoble work — of happy self-sacrifice or ruinous self-indulgence — the capacities in the right use of which it may rise to heights of beau- tiful virtue, in the abuse of which it may sink to depths of debasing vice — make the crisis one of fear as well as of hope, of sadness as well as of joy. It is wistful as well as pleasing to think of the young passing year by year into the world, and engaging with its duties, its interests, and temptations. Of the throng that struggle at the 4 INTRODUCTION. gates of entrance, how many reach their ar/tici- pated goal ? Carry the mind forward a few years, and some have climbed the hills of difficulty and gained the eminence on which they wished to stand — some, although they may not have done this, have yet kept their truth unhurt, their in- tegrity unspoiled ; but others have turned back, or have perished by the way, or fallen in weak- ness of will, no more to rise again. As we place ourselves with the young at the opening gates of life, and think of the end from the beginning, it is a deep concern more than anything else that fills us. Words of earnest argument and warning counsel rather than of congratulation rise to our lips. The seriousness outweighs the pleasantness of the prospect. The following pages have sprung out of this feeling. They deal with religion, and especially with the difficulties of Christian faith at present ; they venture to touch upon professional business and its responsibilities ; they offer some counsels as to study and books. The interests and occupation of the writer have naturally led him to deal with the first of these topics at most length. Faith is the foundation of life ; religion of duty ; and it is impossible to discuss either without respect to the peculiar atmosphere of doubt in which we live, and in which many of the young live even more consciously than their elders. Yet there Is nothing of elaborateness — of learning — or the i INTRODUCTION, ritici- >rears, y and ed to : done iir in- back, weak- at the d from •e than earnest chan of ousness :t. The feeling, vith the they less and lels as to ;upation leal with Faith ;y ; and respect hich we live even let there >r the pretence of learning, in these discussions. They are designed as the free talk of a friend rather than the disquisitions of a theologian. The author has long thought over some of the topics, and he should be glad if his thoughts were useful to any who may be busy with the same inquiries. Plain and unelaborate as they are, they are not likely to interest any but those who have some spirit of inquiry. If to such they should prove at all " Aids to faith," their highest purpose would be served. II Work away I For the Master's eye is on lie, Never off us, stili upon us, Night and day! Work away I K*ep the busy fingers plying ; Keep the ceaseless shuttles flying;: See that never thread lie wroi;^ ; Let not clash or clatter round us, Sound of whirring wheels, con foiiod US : Steady hand I let woof be strong And firm, that has to last so long I Work away I Bring your axes, woodmen true ; Smite the forest till the blue Of Heaven's sunny eye looks thmupli Every wide and tangled glade ; Jungle swamp and tnicket shade Give to-day I O'er the torrents fling your bridget*, Pioneers I Upon the ridges Widen, siuootn the rocky stair — They that follow, far behind, Coming after us, will find Surer, easier, footine there; Heart to heart, and nand with hanvl, From the dawn to dusk of day. Work away ! Scouts upon tlie mountain's peak — Ve that sec the Promised Land, Hearten us I for ye can speak Of the country ye have scanii'd. Far away 1 Work away I For the Father's eye is on us. Never off us, still upon us, Night and day I Work AND PRAv! Pray I and Work will be completer; Work I and Prayer will be the sweeter Love 1 and Prayer and Work the Hcctcr Will ascend upon their way I Live in Future as in Present ; Work for both while yet the day Is our own I for Lord and Peasant, Long and bright as summer's day, Cometh, yet more sure, more pleasant. CometH soon our Holiday; Work away i The Author oj "Thh Patibncb iM HoHB.' WHAT TO DO. HE Christian ideal of life has seemed to many so far removed from the world and its ways, that they have been driven to seek after its attain- ment in an entire abstraction from the world's business and pleasures. They have sought to flee from evil, and not to fight with it. But we rightly judge that this is at once inconsistent with Christian truth and futile as a moral aim Our faith is "the victory that overcometh the world," and not the beaten foe that flies from it. The world is not merely the mass of evil and misery that is around us, but especially the evil that holds our own hearts — the enemy of 8 HO \V TO iSUCCEED IN LIFE. spiritual life and strength and peace that we cany with us wherever we go, and which is indeed ofcen nearer to us in quiet solitude than in the stirring mart. Moreover, as the world is constituted, it is no question of choice, but of obvious necessity, that most men spend their lives in its business and employments. Every one has his work to do. The whole fabric of our modern civilisation is nothing else than the development of the in- dustrial principle which is implanted in our con- stitution, and divinely sanctified in this very fact. The earth was given to man to dress and keep it. He was appointed to find in work the ap- propriate activity and happiness of his being. And there is no law more clear in principle, more sure in result, than that which affixes to social industry, prosperity and blessing. The wealth of nations is its fruit, the glory of civilisation its crown. To the young who stand, as it were, on the threshold of the great workhouse of the world, preparing to take their part in it, it becomes a serious and urgent consideration what part they are to take in it. After the formation of Chris- tian principles, the choice of a profession is the most serious consideration that can engage their attention. Perhaps the first step in the consideration is to reclise the necessity of having definite work WHAT TO DO. 9 to do, and the real worth, and, if we may say so, sacredness of all honest work. I'here arc few men who escape the necessity of adopting some calling or profession ; and there are fewer still who, if they rightly understood their own interest and happiness, would ever think of such an escape. For, according to that law of work of which we have already spoken, life finds its most enjoyable action in regular alternations of employment and leisure. Without employment it becomes a tedium, and men are forced to make work for themselves. They turn their very pleasures into toil, and undertake, from the mere want of something to do, the most laborious and exhausting pastimes. To any healthy nature, idleness is an intolerable burden ; and its en- forced endurance a more painful penance than the hardest labours. It is not easy, however, for the young to realise this. " Play " has been such a charm to their schoolboy fancy, that they sometimes dream that they would like life to be all play. They are apt, at least, to take to regular work with something of a grudge. They have so many delays and difficulties about a profession, that time passes on and they miss their oppor- tunity. There is no more serious calamity can happen to any young man than this ; and many a life has been wasted from sheer incapacity of fixing on what to do. The will gets feeble in the , ■ 1 I 10 no W TO SUCCEED W LIFE. direction of self-denial of any kind, and talents which might have carried their possessor on to social consideration and usefulness, serve merelv to illumine an aimless and pitied existence. Young men who are, so to speak, born t<; work — to whom life leaves no chance of idleness — are perhaps the most fortunate. They take up the yoke in their youth. They set their faces to duty from the first ; and if life should prove a burden, their backs become inured to it, so that they bear the weight more easily than others do pleasures and vanities. In our modern life, this is a largely-increasing class. As the relations of society become n.ore complicated, and its needs more enlarged, refined, and ex- pensive, the duty of work — of every man to his own work — becomes more urgent and universal. There is no room left for the idle. There rre certainly no rewards to them. Society expects every man to do his duty ; and its revenge is very swift when its claims are neglected or its expectations disappointed. But it is at least equally important for young men to begin life with an intelligent appreciation of work as a whole, and to free their mind from the prejudices which have so long prevailed on this subject. It is singular how long and to what extent these prejudices have prevailed. Some kinds of employment have been deemed WHAT TO DO. 11 by traditionary opinion to be honourable, and such as gentlemen may engage in ; others have been deemed ic be base, and unfit for gentle- men. Why so ? It would puzzle any moralist to tell. The profession of a soldier is supposed to be the peculiar profession of a gentleman ; that of a tailor is the opprobrium of boys and the ridicule of small wits. Is there not some- thing untrue as well as unworthy in the implied comparison } There is surely no reason why industrial employments, involving a high exer- cise of intelligence and skill, should not be as honourable as the profession of a soldier ; such employments are peculiarly characteristic ot civilisation, and rise with it into higher forms of utility ; while the mere soldier, even if his need should not decrease — as our Peace-utopians dreamed some years ago — must yet sink into comparative insignificance with the progress of Christian enlightenment and the wider diflfusion cf good government. Prejudices of this sort, however, are very invet- erate, and live long in sentiment after they have been defeated in reason. While we are losing sight of the usages of feudal times, its traditions .still cling to us — traditions which are the legi- timate descendants of the ignorance which led the mailed baron to boast that he had never learned to write — and which made it be deemed inconsistent with the position of a gentleman to M 13 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE, I ' ,i do anything but fight, or hunt, or spend his time in wassail. It is not necessary, certainly, and would not be well for society to unlearn such traditions all at once. They connect age with age, and perhaps lend a softening influence to the vast changes which the modern development of wealth is calling forth ; but they are not the less really ignorant ; and when prolonged in force, tlirough a time whose social necessities have outlived them, they become purely mischievous. Such a time is ours. The protective or feudal idea of life is gone. The lord and his retainers — the castle and its dependants — are images of the past. Economical relations are everywhere sup- planting the old personal and authoritative rela- tions which used to bind society together. Ser- vants and masters, traders and customers, tenants and landlords, no longer occupy towards each other indefinite attitudes of dependence, on the one hand, and of patronising favour, on the other hand. Each have their own definite position and interests — their fixed commercial relation to the others ; and within their own spheres and duties they ire almost equally independent. This may be a bad or a good change. It is a subject of regret to many who look back upon the old state of things with sentiments of emo- tion as that to which their youth was familiar, and the memory of which pleasantly lingers v/ith them. As life becomes a retrospect rather than WHAT TO DO. IS ■ a prospect, it is natural that the mind should cling to the old familiar forms of society, and repel, even with dislike, the revolutions taking place around it. There is, no doubt, a good deal to excite regret in the accessories of the change. With the decline of the instincts of dependence, those of respectful courtesy and obedient charity are apt also to vanish. There is less free, lively, and affectionate intercourse of class with class, where the commercial feeling has displaced the old personal family feeling — an evil which may be seen working, with special confusion, at present in the department of do- mestic service. But whatever may be the dis- agreeable results of the change, as we see it proceeding under our eyes, it is, beyond ques- tion, an inevitable change, which we ought not therefore to regret, but to understand and make the most of for the good of society as a whole. It is the necessary consequence of the enormous development of industrial life, and the rapidly- accumulating wealth touching all classes of society, which flows from this development. And if society should seem to lose some of its old courtesies in the course of things, we are to remember that the feeling of independence which has sprung up in exchange is a great gain. Society cannot lose in the end from its own pro- gress. A widening field of human activity will be opened up in many directions ; industrial 14 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. employment of all kinds will rise to an equal value and worth, ai means of securing an honest and honourable livelihood. Men will learn to be ashamed of no work which gives them a solid footing in the struggling mass of social activity around them, and saves them from being a burden to others. It is the imperative duty of all who recognise the vast social revolution that is going on, if they cannot help to clear the pathway of the worker — male and female — at least to do nothing to obstruct it by the promulgation of obsolete and mischievous notions. Let the revolution silently work itself out. Let young men, and young women too, of whatever grade of life, to whom there may seem no opening in the now recognised channels of professional or domestic activity which have been conventionally associ- ated with their position, make to themselves, as they may be able, an opening in the ranks of commercial or mechanical employment. If society, from its very increase of wealth and re- finement, and the expensive habits which neces- sarily flow from this increase, creates obstacles to an advantageous settlement in life after the old easy manner to many among the young, it certainly ought not by its prejudices to stand in the way of their launching upon the great world of life in their own behalf, and attaining to what industrial independence and prosperity they can. ir//. I T TO DO. 15 It is at least a right and wise feeling for the young to cultivate — that there is no form of honest work which is really beneath them. It may or may not be suitable for them. It may or may not be the species of work to which they have any call. But let them not despise it. The grocer is equally honourable with the lawyer, and the tailor with the, soldier, as we have already said. It is just as really becoming a gentleman — if we could purge our minds of traditional delusions which will not stand a moment's impartial examination — to serve be- hind a counter as to sit at a desk, to pursue a handicraft as to indite a law paper or write an article. The only work that is more honourable, is work of higher skill and more meritorious ex- cellence. It is the qualities of the workman, and not the name or nature of the work, that is the source of all real honour and respect. The professions to which life invites the young are of very various kinds ; and the question of choice among them, as it is very important, is sometimes also very trying and difficult. Rightly viewed, it ought to be a question simply of capa- city. What am I fit for } But it is more easy in many cases to ask this question than to answer it. It will certainly, however, facilitate an answer, to disembarrass the mind of stch prejudices as we have been speaking of. The field of choice 10 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. !l ll I ; ;i " is in this manner left comparatively open. Work as such, if it be honest work, is esteemed not for the adventitious associations that may surround it, but because it offers an appropriate exercise for such powers as we possess, and a means of self-support and independence. There are those to whom the choice of a pro- fession presenfs comparatively few difficulties. They are gifted with an aptitude for some par- ticular calling, in such a degree that they them- selves and their friends discern their bent from 'early youth, and they grow up with no other desire than to betake themselves to what is ac- knowledged to be their destiny in the world. Such c^ses arc, perhaps, the happiest of all; but they are far from numerous, A special aptitude is seldom so pronounced in youth. Even where it exists, it lies hid many a time, and unknown even to its possessor, till opportunity calls it forth. There are other cases where the circum- stances of the young are such as to mark out for them without deliberation on their part the pro- fession which they are to follow. Family tradi- tions and social advantages may so clearly point their way in life that they never hesitate. They have never been accustomed to look in any other direction, and they take to their lot with a nappy pride, or at least a cheerful contentment. But the great majority of young men are not to be found in either of these envied positions, ■isl WHAT TO DO. ir They have their way to nial^c in the world ; and they are neither so specially jjiftcd, on the one hand, nor so fortunately circumstanced, on the other hand, as to see clearly and without delib- eration the direction in which they should turn, and the fitting work to which they should give themselves. Many things must be considered by them and for them in such a case which we are not called upon to discuss here — which, indeed, we cannot discuss here. The accidents of position, with \vhich, after all, the balance of their lot may lie, vary so indefinitely that it would be impossible to indicate any clear line of direction for them. But without venturing to do this, it may be use- ful to fix the thoughts of the young upon certain general features of the various classes of profes- sions that lie before them in the world open for their ambition and attainment. Professions may be generally classified as in- tellectual, commercial, and mechanical, exclud- ing those which belong to the public service, such as the army and navy, and the civil offices under Government. These form by themselves a class of professions of great importance. But the aptitudes which they require are, upon the whole, less determined, and therefore less easily characterised, than those which the ordinary professions demand. A merchant or a shoe- r in I r 'f I 1 ^ ' IE ! 18 HO W TO SUCCEED TN L TEE. maker, or even a clerjrymaA, may become, should circumstances summon him, a soldier or a diplomatist, but neither the soldier nor diplo- matist could so easily assume the function of the merchant, or shoemaker, or clergyman. And for the simple reason that the function of these last is more definite, or professional, and, there- fore, involves a more special aptitude, or one more easy of discovery and consideration. Not that, for a moment, we would be supposed to un- dervalue the inner faculties that go to make the excellent soldier or Government official. Only in the former case, the qualities of honour, bravery, and patriotism, are such as all men ought to pos- sess — they are common attributes of a healthy humanity ; and in the latter case, the very same qualities that point to official employment, and would be likely to obtain distinction in it, are such as are equally needed for some of the ordi- nary professions included in our classification. Neither must it be supposed, in making this classification, that the names we have used have anything more than a general application war- ranted by the talk of society, and, therefore, sufficiently intelligible. There are certain call- ings which society has agreed to consider more intellectual, more of the character of professions, and others which it regards as more peculiarly of a business or commercial character, and others again that are more of the nature of a craft, or WflA'l TO uO 19 handiwork. In point of fact, all are intellectual in the sense of calling into exercise the intel- lectual powers ; and it may so happen that more mental capacity may be shewn in conduct- ing affairs of business, or in inventing or applying some new mechanical agency, than in the dis- charge of the duties of the intellectual profes- sions, commonly so called. This does not, however, affect the propriety of the classifica- tion. The subject-matter of the callings is nevertheless distinct. Those of the first class deal more largely and directly with the intel- lectual nature of man ; they involve a more spe- cial mental training ; while those of the other two classes deal more with the outward industrial activities, and are presumed not to require so prolonged or careful an intellectual education. This obvious distinction serves to mark gene- rally the qualities that are demanded in these respective orders of professions. Whether a man is to be a clergyman, lawyer, (using the word in its largest sense as including the pro- fession of the bar) physician, — or a merchant, an engineer, or an ordinary tradesman, should depend, in a general way at least, on the com- parative vivacity and force of his intellectual powers. A youth who has but little intellectual interest, who cares but little or not at all fov literary study and the delights of scholastic am- bition, is shut out by nature from approach to 20 HOW 10 .^. L'CC r.FD 73 L IFK ! i the former professions. They are not /it's calling in any higli or even useful sense. He may ap- proach them and enter upon them, and a certain worldly success may even await him in them under the favouring gale of circumstances ; but according to any real standard of excellence or utility, he has missed his proper course in life. He may have found what he wanted, but others will often have failed to find in him what they were entitled to expect. Take the case of a clergyman, for example. We do not forget that in this cace there are cer- tain qualities of still higher consideration and moment than even the intellectual ; but we do not meddle with these here. These qualities may be supposed by some to isolate the func- tion of a clergyman altogether from the ordi- nary avocations of life ; but even such a view would not aft'ect the bearing of our remarks. Practically, the function of the Christian minis- try is and will always be one of the main chan- nels into which youthful activity is directed in this and every Christian country. Look at the work of this ministry then, and it will be obvious at once what a fatal deficiency is the want of intellectual interest. The very truths with which it deals, in their original meaning, their history, their moral and social influence, must remain in a great degree unintelligible when there is not a constant pleasure in studying them. It is need- uniAT rn po 21 less to say that they are so simple that a child may understand them. In one sense this is true. But the child-understandint^, however precious, is not the understanding of the well-instructed Scribe, who is able to bring forth from his treasury things new and old. It is melancholy to think what wreck many make in this way by turning the deep things of God into baby-prattle, and narrowin^j the jjrand circumference of Christian truth lo then o»vn soiAfi circle ol ideas. Every- where Christianity suffers with the decay of living thought, and the poverty of intellectual comprehension in the clergy ; and there never was a darker or sadder delusion than that which infected and may still infect certain classes of society, that a man whose mental capacities did not promise much success in the world might yet be useful in the Church. It is not, perhaps, too much to say that one half of the evils which have retarded the progress of Christian truth, and perilled the very existence of the Christian Church, have come, not, as is often said, from un- sanctified talent, but from the degrading influ- ence of mean talents, and narrowness of thought. The same is no less true of the Bar or legal profession in all its bearings, and of the profession of Medicine. Each of these professions demands a vivacious intellectual interest, powers of real and independent thought. Neither their princi- ples can be grasped, nor their highest applications 22 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. 1 i to the wellbeing of society appreciated, without these. All, it may be said, are not required to rise so high ; there must be common as well as higher workmen in all professions, — " hewers of wood and drawers of water," as well as men oi wide and commanding intelligence. And this is true. Only the question remains, whether those who never rise above the mechanical routine of the higher professions would not have been really more happy and useful in some lower department of industry. In contemplating a profession none should willingly set before them the prospect of being nothing but a Gideonite in it. And yet this must be the fate, and deserves to be the fate, of all who rush towards work for which nature has given them no special capacity. By aiming beyond their power, they are likely to fall short of the competency and success that, in some more congenial form of work, might have awaited them. It seems so far, therefore, that there is a sufll- ciently plain line of guidance as to the choice of a profession. If your interest is not in study, if your bent is not intellectual, then there is one large class of professions for which yoti are not destined. Ycu may be intellectual, highly so, and yet you may not choose any of these profes- sions ; circumstances may render this inadvan- tageous : or, while your intellectual life is inqui- sitive and powerful, your active ambition may be miAT TO DO. :I8 no less powerful, and may carry you away. But at any rate, if you have not a lively interest in intellectual pursuits, neither the Church, nor the Bar, nor Medicine is your appropriate profes- sional sphere. You can never be in any of these a " workman needing not to be ashamed." Nor let it be supposed that there is anything derogatory in this lack of intellectual interest in the sense in which we now mean. It by no means implies intellectual ignorance or indispo- sition to knowledge, but simply no predominat- ing desire for study as a habit and mode of life. It is not the book in the quiet room that interests you so much as the busy ways of the world, the commercial intercourse of men, or, it may be, some mechanical craft to which your thoughts are ever turning, and your hands inclining. How constantly are such difterences observed in boys! Scholastic tastes weary and stupefy some who are all alert as soon as the unwelcome pressure is lifted from their minds, and their enei^ies are allowed their natural play. Their aptitude is lot for classic lore ; their delight is not in lore at ail, but in active work of some kind, the interest of which is of an every-day practical character. The simple rule in such a case is — follow your bent. It may not shew itself so particularly as in some cases we have already supposed ; but, at least, it is so far manifest. It is clearly not in certain dire':tions, and so far therefore the field :1 I , U HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. of your choice is limited. Probe a little deeper and more carefully, and it may come more plainly into view. And, remember, one bent is really as honourable as another, although it may not aim so high. The young merchant is just as clearly "called" as the young clergyman, if he feel the faculty of business stirring in him. And who seem often more called than great mecha- nicians, — men often with little general know- ledge, and little intellectual taste and sympathy, but who have a creatine faculty of design, as de- terminate in its way as the art of the painter or the poet t These are special cases. But in ordinary youth something of the same kind may be observed. There are boys designed by nature for commer- cial life ; there are others plainly designed for mechanical employment. Nature has stamped their destiny upon them in signs which shew themselves, if sought after. Let not them and their friends try to countersign the seal of nature. This is always a grievous harm : a harm to the individual, and a possible harm to the world. Even where Nature's indications may be ob- scure, there seems no other rule than to trace and follow them. Some boys of healthy and well-developed faculties, or, still more likely, of weak and unemphatic qualities, may seem to have no particular destiny in the world. Yet thty have. Their place is prepared for them, if WHAT TO DO. 25 they can find it. And their only hope of doing so is to observe nature, and follow it. She may not have written her lines broadly on their souls, but she has put tracings there, which may be found and followed. There are a few who may seem to find their position in the world more by accident than anything else. Circumstances determine their lot, and without any thought of theirs, they seem to get into the place qiost fitting them. Yet even in such cases, circum- stances are often less powerful than are supposed, or, at least, they have wrought with nature, and this unconscious conformity has proved the strongest influence in fashioning such lives to prosperity and success. It remains to be added that, while the view we have expressed of the worth of all honest work is to be strongly maintained, there are, no doubt, dift'erences in work which, in relation to certain characters and temperaments, assume a moral importance. There are professions which have capacities of evil for certain natures, as there are others which have in themselves capacities of good, if rightly used. The saying of Dr Arnold, as to the profession of the law, may be remembered. It seemed to him a bad profession, and he would not, he strongly pro- tested, have any of his sons enter upon it. This was a narrow, and even false, view. Dr Arnold, great man as he was, was not exempt from ex- ■ I !• ?;; is ) t 4*.' i:0W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. tr«mc prejudices, as this shews. Yet it pointr,, like many extreme views, to a partial truth. The law, grand and noble profession as it is in its higher, and, indeed, in all its right relations, presents, at the same time, peculiar possibilities of evil to an unstable or unconscientious will. It offers peculiar temptations. And there arc other professions equally dangerous, if we may so say. They are apt to bring into play the inferior, and to hold in check the superior, elements of ouj- nature. They put a constant strain upon the moral life, which it requires very healthy or unusual powers to withstand. Such professions are not bad, but they are trying ; and it must be a serious consideration with the young, and the friends of the young, if they are fitted for such a trial. It would be needless to say, avoid such pro- fessions ; because, in point of fact, they are not to be avoided. They exist because the neces- sities of society demand them, (of course. I am not speaking of any but entirely honest profes- sions which, in their conception, involve no viola tion of moral principle) ; they flourish as these same necessities become more complicated and refined ; and while they do so, young men will seek their career in them laudably and well. It is vain and foolish, in such a matter, to broach mere theories — to cry where none will follow. But it is our duty to guide those who need WHAT TO DO. 87 guidance ; to say that such a door is open for some and not for others. For strong natures, there is strong work ; for weak and less certain natures, there h also work, but not of the same kind. The back is fitted to the b'lrden in a higher sense than is sometimes meant, if only the back do not overtask its powers, and assume ^o carry weight that was never meant for it. IL HOW TO DO IT. UPPOSING a young man to have chosen a profession and entered upon it, his next aim must be ho\/ to do well in it. This must be a thought inseparable from his choice, if it has been freely and rightly conducted. The pro- fession or work which we have selected to do in the world, becomes the great channel of our regular and every -day activity; and how we shall order this activity in the best manner, so as most effectually to secure its reward anrl our own happiness, must be an anxiety to all beginning life. Bevond doubt, the first condition of succei 6' UCCEED IN LIFE, i\ II Another business qualification, although not so essential as the foregoing, is despatch. It is less of a moral qualification — more of a mental accomplishment. It is, however, in moet profes- sions, a very important accomplishment. Bis dai, qtii cito dat. And the same thing might be said of work, when the quickness with which it is done is not the quickness of perfunctory, and therefore imperfect performance, but the quick- ness of a skilful and ready accomplishment. It is one of the great functions of a professional life to form this accomplishment ; and every young man should certainly aim to have it. First, in- deed, he should learn to do his work thoroughly. There is nothing can make up for the want of thoroughness. If he aim at despatch irrespective of this, he commits a fundamental mistake. He is like a man sharpening his weapons without testing their strength. And there are men who seem to do this. They acquire a smart and facile activity, which skims over a subject without lay- ing hold of it. Despatch, in this sense, is not to be studied, but avoided. For it is better to do work thoroughly, however slowly or inter- ruptedly, than to do work imperfectly, with what- ever promptitude. With this reserve it is well to cultivate despatch in business — not to dally" over what may be done at once and promptly. Every one feels how much more satisfactory it is to HOW TO DO IT. W have work done quickly, if also well. Nothing, in fact, more makes the difference between the really good workman in any department and the inferior workman than the promptitude with which he carries out any piece of business in- trusted to him. The more complicated business becomes, and the more it strains the energies, the more wonderfully would it seem to call forth these energies in many cases, so that a large amount of work is done both better and more promptly than a small amount in other cases. It is the triumph of method. The genius of arrangement overcomes the greatest difficulties, and secures results that would have appeared incredible without it. The despatch that is. really desirable comes in this way from a close attention to method. Quickness itself should not be so much the aim, because this may lead to summary and imper- fect work; but quickness following from the per- fection of a method which takes up everything at the right time and applies to it the adequate resources. This is the secret of a genuine promp- titude. It is the issue of a right system more than anything. Every profession implies system'. There can be no efficiency and no advance without it. The meanest trade demands it, and would run to waste without something of it. The perfection W M 38 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFH of the most complicated business, is the perfec- tion of the system with which it is conducted. It is this that binds its complications together, and gives a unity to all its energies. It is like a hidden sense pervading it, responsive at every point, and fitly meeting every demand. The marvellous achievements of modern commerce, stretching its relations over distant seas and many lands, and gathering the materials of every civilis.ition within its ample bosom, are, more than anything, the result of an expand- ing and victorious system, which shrinks at no obstacles, and adapts itself to every emergency. Accordingly, the professional, man places the highest value upon system. However clever, ingenious, or fruitful in expedients a youth may be, if he is erratic and disorderly in his personal or mental habits, he is thereby unfitted for many kinds of work. The plodding and m.ethodical youth will outstrip him, and leave him behind ; and this not merely in the more mechanical pro- fessions, but to a great extent also in the more intellectual professions. Life itself, with all its free and happy outgoings, is systematic. Order reigns everywhere. And in no business of life can this great principle be neglected with im- punity. Even on those who seem to obey it least externally, it operates. The very force that sustains them, and which, in its apparently irregular action, might seem to be defiant of rTOW TO DO TT. no all law, is only preserved at all by some en- veloping although undefined order. The young must keep before them this neces- sity of all business. They may hear it some- times spoken of among their fellows with indif- ference or scorn. " Red tape" has passed into a byword of contempt ; and " red tape," in the sense of a mere dead and unintelligent routine, has deserved many hard things to* be said of it A man of routine, and nothing else, is a poor creature. System, which ceases to be a means, and becomes in itself — apart from the very ob- ject for which it was originally designed — an end, proves itself, in this very fact, a nuisance, to be swept away — the sooner the better. But the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use ; and it is childish not to see this in any case. Routine, in and for itself, has no value ; and the mind that settles on the mere outside of work, forgetful of its inner meaning and real aim, is necessarily a mind of feeble and narrow energies ; but routine, as an organ of energetic thought and action — of a living, comprehensive intelligence, which sees the end from the means — is one of the most powerful instruments of human accomplishment. And there can be no profession without its appropriate and effective routiiic. LeJ- every youthful aspirant carefully learn the letter, without forgetting the spirit, of hh pro- 40 no W TO FiUCCEED IN L TFE. fession. Let him subdue his energies to its sys- tem, but not allow the system to swallow up his energies. Let him be a man of routine, but let him be something more. Let him be master of its machinery, but capable of rising above it. With the former he cannot dispense; without the latter, he cannot be great or successful.* But there is one qualification, in conclusion, more important than all — conscientiousness. Whatever be our profession, we should not only learn its duties carefully, and devote ourselves to them earnestly, but we should carry the light * The following remarks on the importance of method in business, by the author of •' Essays Written in the Intervals of Business," veil deserve the attention of the young leader : — ** Our student is not intended to become a learned man, but a man of business ; not a • full man,' but a * ready man.' He must be taujjht to arrange and express what he knows. For this purpose let him employ himself in making digests, arrang- ing and classifying materials, writing narratives, and in deciding upon conflicting evidence. All these exercises require method. He must expect that his early attempts will l)e clumsy j he be- gins, perhaps, by dividing his subject in any way that occurs to him, with no other view than that of treating separate portio'is of it separately ; he does not perceive, at first, what things arc of one kind, and what of another, and what should be the logical order of those following. But from such rude beginnings method is developed ; and there is hardly any degree of toil for which he would not be compensated by such a result. He will have a sure reward in the clearness of his own views, and in the facility of explaining them to others. People bring their attention to the man who gives them most profit for it ; and tJis will be one who is a master of method. " no w TO no it. 41 and guidance of conscience with us into all its details and relations. Why should we par- ticularise this ? Conscience, of course, should animate and guide our whole life, and our busi- ness neither more nor less than other aspects of our life. Exactly so. This is the very thing we desire to shew. And it requires particular mention, just because it is the very thing we are apt to forget, practically, in the midst of profes- sional activity, notwithstanding that it seems so obvious. Every profession has its peculiar temp- tations — its guiles calculated to lay conscience to sleep. Some have more than others ; but none can be said to be free from such snares. Is it wrong to do this, or allow that ? May cer- tain things not be done in the way of business that would scarcely be justifiable in private life ? May not a professional position be fairly used for such and such ends ? Such puzzles for con- science beset every profession ; and notoriously they often receive solutions in consonance neither with religion nor morality. Yet the true dictate of conscience every- where must be, that there is nothing right or lawful in business that would not be so in the relations of private life. There cannot be two codes of honour or honesty. I cannot be an honest man, and not shrink from dishonesty In every shape. I cannot use my profession for any purpose which, apart from my profession, it 42 no W TO SUCCEED TN L TFE. would be evil in me to compass. In everything — in the competitions of business, in the conflicts of ambition, in the rivalries of trade — Christian principle must be my guide. Never with im- punity can the light of conscience be obscured, nor its scruples overbalanced. Let the young take with them this principle into the entanglements of the world's affairs. Conscience may not always serve them us a positive guide. There may be intricacies which it cannot unravel. But at least it will always serve them as a negative warning. When con- science clearly pronounces against any practice of business, they must shun it. They must not tamper with it. They must be able to court the light of day in all they do. It is a sorry and pitiable shift when it becomes desirable to hide from scrutiny the inner mechanism of any profession. The business which bases itself on conscience is stronger in this very 'i"act than in the most skilful trade manoeuvres. It is fair, and nothing tells in the end so well as fairness. The feeling of responsibility and the love of truth give not only strength, but " endow with diligence, accuracy, and discreetness, those commonplace requisites for a good man of business, without which all the rest may never come to be ' translated into action.* " * The gilding wears off the most in- * Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, p. 98. HOW TO DO TT. 4» gcnious devices; tlie novelty fades away; the pretence appears below the mask; but the true gold of principle shines the more brightly the more »t is tested, and endurei as fresh as evpf after all changes. w HOW TO READ. HE busiest professional life has its moments of leisure. It is the im- pulse and duty of every right-minded man to secure time for himself and his personal culture, as well as time for his business. This js something quite different from allowing any favourite or distracting pur- suit to interfere with business. The one course, all men who would succeed in their profession will shun. The other course, all men who would not be mere professional machines will follow. And what never ceases to be more or less a duty throughout life, is an imperative duty to the young. Their hours of leisure recur regu- 46 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. •! 1 :l larly, their professional work has its formal limits of time ; and beyond these limits, they have comparatively few cares or anxieties. Their minds arc yet fresh and vigorous, athirst for knowledge, if no* ruined by self-indulgence or spoiled by early education. To them those hours still in the morning of life which they can devote to self-culture, are among the most precious of all their life. •' Is it possible," it has been asked, " to oven ate the preciousness of the intervals of leisure, which afford a temporary release from the daily task, and restore the mind to its self- possession, and to the consciousness of its noblest powers and its highest aims. To one who is ca- pable of appr-cciating its uses, every such pause is an emerging out of the grosser element, in which one Ir. carried on blindly by the current, into the pure air and clear light, where the feet find a firm usting-place. It is an indispensable condition of every large outlook on the world without, and of all true insight into the world within. A condition ; it is that, but nothing more. A golden opportunity ; but one which may prove worse than useless." The young have this opportunity in their own hands. It may be wasted to their hurt, or even their ruin, but it may also be improved to their highest advantage. The education of school is the mere portal to the higher education which every one may give HOW TO READ. 47 to himself. In many cases, in fact, it may be said that education does not begin till we leave school. The mental energies are disciplined and brought into activity, the capacity is formed ; but the real life of thought is seldom awakened till those years of early manhood when most men have ceased to be under tutors and gover- nors. It is sometimes strange how high mere scholastic training may go, and yet leave the general intellectual life dull and feeble. In all, save very rare cases, it seems to require that contact with reality which comes from inter- course with the world to quicken and fully develop the intellect. And it is only after this quickening has begun, that our higher and enduring education may be said to proceed. No doubt, there are certain elements of edu- cation which, if not acquired at school, can scarcely ever afterwards be acquired. It is hard to learn certain things, after the first freshness and tenacity of memory are gone. It is impos- sible, perhaps, to learn them thoroughly. No man, probably, ever made himself a first-rate .scholar who had not mastered the peculiarities of the ancient classical languages while yet, comparatively, a boy. But valuable as such an acquisition in every point of view is, it is nothing more, strictly speaking, than an instrument of education. It is a charmed key to unlock treasures of Intellectual knowledge that must 48 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. Ill ill 1 1 J I I I remain closed, or nearly so, to those who cannot use it. This capacity of use has not been got without mental stimulus and strengthening. Yet it is only after the years of reflection and critical appreciation have arrived, that even so valuable a power can be said to become a living and genuine education. This must come in all cases from spontaneous rather than from forced impulse, from the free movement of the awakened mind rather than from the constrained and tutored guidance of the merely awakening mind. In the stage of scholastic pupilage many influences move the young, apart from the real desire of knowledge — emulation, ambition, the desire to stand well in the judgment of others — motives, " no doubt, fair, and liberal, and full of promise, but yet entirely distinct from an interest in study itself, and quite consistent with a real indifference and even distaste for it. It is only when all such motives are withdrawn, when the youth is sub- ject to no attraction but of the pursuit itself, (disengaged from those which had been com- bined with it, if they did not supply its place,) only when his exertions are animated by this purely spontaneous and truly philosophical mo- tive, can it be known either by himself or others what is really in him. How often has it hap- pened that those who had won the most bril- liant distinction in a competitive career have HOW TO BEAD. 40 sunk into inaction and obscurity, when the im- mediate object was attained ; while noiseless steps, sustained by the pure love of knowledge, and in the face of the greatest difficulties and discouragements, have unheedingly and almost unconsciously gained a summit of admiring fame ! " * Of this higher self-education, everything that a man meets with in this world — all that he ob- serves, and all that he does — may be the instru- ments. His profession, the accidents which sur- round it, the interest which it creates and pro- motes, have the effect of sharpening his mind to a keener and more real, or of opening it to a wider, view of things. While still at school, the world aopears to us in vague and shadowy out- line. We move only on the circumference of it. Its exciting realities are at a distance, both by reason of our imperfect comprehension of them, and the close family life which veils them from our gaze. This is the blessing of youth, that the dawning intelligence should abide, as it were, in a secluded nest of love till it receive wings to soar away. But when ^he time of its flight comes, there is a great world of knowledge opened to it. Things which it only saw dimly and far off before are now brought near to it * Bishop of St David's Address to the Members of the Ediii' burgh FhiLosophical Institution. ! ■ 50 no W TO SUCCEED IN L TFE. } ' ii Life, with its intense interests and conflicts, is felt to be a reality in which it mingles and has its part. Such intellectual experiences spring up at every stage of its first progress, and to all who improve these experiences there n. ly be in them an education of the highest kind. In one point of view, no doubt, this knowledge of the world is fraught with extreme danger to the young. It proves to many of them ^n every succeeding generation little more than the " opening of their eyes " to know good and evil ; yet as the change is inevitable, it is useless to regret it on this score. It must come, and while it brings with it its chances of hurt, it is also a great opportunity of intellectual enlargement to those who rightly use it. It is something like the flight of the young birds from the parent nest. The experiment is one of trial, but it must be made, and amid its perils there is the secret joy of power and of acquisition. The world is no longer the roof-tree of branches, the warm "contiguity of shade" which has hitherto sheltered them, but the wide expanse of heaven, and the multiplied and glorious forms of nature, in whose never-ceasing activity they find the strength and happiness of theii being. The world must be to all a constant and in- sensible education. To many it is the most real and earnest education they ever receive. The now TO READ. 51 days of school may never have been to such, of have faded away from their memory. The days of spontaneous culture from direct intellectual sources may never have come to them ; but their intercourse with the world has given forth a continued intellecLual influence under which their powers have been excited and sometimes nurtured into rare gifts. It is not such remark- able cases indeed that we are now contem- plating. But the existence of such cases serves to prove to what extent mere converse with life and its experiences may be the means not merely of making us n^orc clever and skilful, but of really developing and enriching our mental resources — of cultivating within us a ripe and sympathetic faculty of wisdom which is one of the highest results of knowledge. And if the world of human life be thus educa- tive, the world of nature is equally or still more so. It is a constant school of high thoughts to all who love and study it. Who has not felt the singular awakening of intelligence that some- times comes in early manhood from a mere walk into the quiet country in the fre -h morning or the still evening ! It is difficult to say how it is — but at such times the soul seems to take a start — to receive a new insight — to come forth in new and more sensitive vigour. Limits which have hitherto bound it fall aA^ay. Shadows with 11 • II ty, HOW TO SUCCEED TN LIFE. I T. which it has been fighting fly off", and it escapes into an atmosphere of divine reality. This is the secret of its sudden expansion. It is in some measure the same process, although arising from a difierent cause, and wholly free from all evil admixt ire, as that which takes place when the youth enters into his first free contact with the world. The great face of living fact in either case evokes the forces of his being as they have not been evoked before. The soul leaps from its boyhood trance to meet the vast life outside of it, as it circulates in human hearts, or in the com- mon responsive heart of nature. Communion with nature is apt to lose its freshness with the advance of life. There are few in whom it oreserves the vivid educative fervour with which it moved them in yDuth or early manhood. Unless fed by constant cul- ture from other sources, it is especially likely to fail and exhaust itself. There may be those so imperfect in endowment as never to realise the educative influences which it so richly pro- vides. But with others, it continues a never- failing and fresh source of intellectual quicken- ing. As they turn ever anew to it, they read new meanings in it — they find a new impulse in its contemplation ; its sweet influences bind into unity or flush with light the knowledge they have been painfully gathering from other quar* ters. The young, if they know their own happi- I <* HOW TO READ. K' ness, will carefully cherish this love of nature, not as a mere pastime, nor as a mere sensuous delight, but as a constant source of intellectual life and illumination. Let them go forth into its open face with the problems that torment them, with the books that puzzle them, with the thoughts that are often a weariness and distrac- tion ; and it is wonderful what a quiet radiance will often steal into their hearts — how burdens will be lifted up, and the vision of a comprehen- sive Faith dawn upon them in glimpses, if not in perfect outline. But more directly still than Life or Nature must Books be the means of the self-culture demanded of the young. Or rather, these must co-operate to make the culture of the former what it should be. Life, save in rare cases, will cease to be a living school, and nature also ; both will fail to furnish fresh intellectual expe- rience, where the mind is not fed by study in the common and more limited sense of the word. The love of books — the love of reading — there- fore, is the most requisite, the most efficient in- strument of self-education. Where this is not found in young or in old, all intellectual life soon dies out — rather, it may be said never to have been quickened. This is the distinction, as much as anything, between a mere sensuous life, whose only care is what it sh^U eat and what it i I .!(' 1 1 54 now TO FirrCEED TN LIFE. shall drink, and wherewithal it shall be clothed, and an intelligent life which looks " before and after." A literary taste, apart from its higher uses, is among the most pure and enduring of earthly enjoyments. It brings its possessor into ever- renewing communion with all that is highest and best in the thought and sentiment of the past. The garnered wisdom of the ages is its daily food. Whatever is dign.fied and lofty in specu- lation, or refined or elevated in feeling, or wise, quaint, or humorous in suggestion, or soaring or tender in imagination, is accessible to the lover of books. He can command the wittiest or the wisest of companions at his pleasure. He can re- tire and hold converse with philosophers, states- men, and poets ; he can regale himself with their richest and deepest thoughts, with their most exquisite felicities of expression. His favourite books are a world to him. He lives with their characters ; he is animated by their senti- ments ; he is moved by their principles. And when the outer world is a burden to him — when its ambitions fret him, or its cares worry him — he finds refuge in this calmer world of the past, and soothes his resentment and stimulates his languor in peaceful sympathy with it. Especially dpes this love of literature rise into enjoyment, when other and more active i'u TOW TO READ. 55 enjoyments begin to fade away. When the senses lose their freshness, and the limbs their activity, the man who has leiirned to love books has a constant and ever-growing interest. When the summit of professional life has been attained, and wealth secured, and the excitements of busi- ness yield to the desire for retirement, such a man has a happy resource in himself; and the taste which he cultivated at intervals, and some- times almost by stealth, amidst the pressure of business avocations, becomes to him at once an ornament and a blessing. It is impossible to overrate the comparative dignity, as well as enjoyment, of a life thus well spent, which has preserved an intellectual feeling amidst commer- cial ventures or sordid distractions, and brightens at last into an evening of intellectual wisdom and calm. It becomes a matter of great importance, therefore, to young men, how best to cultivate this intellectual taste or love for literature. How shall they best order their studies ? Read- ing, with occasional lectures, must be the great instrument of all spontaneous education. How shall they read to the best advantage ? It must be obvious at once that mere desul- tory reading cannot be the best thing. Whether it be liable to all the objections that have been urged against it, we need not inquire. Probably 5C no W TO SUCCEED TN L TF K. it is not. There have been those who have found in desultory reading a mental stimulus, which has not only proved a high culture for themselves, but has carried them to heights ot intellectual fame. Sir Walter Scott is a notable example. He indulged, when a youth, in the most indiscriminate and desultory course of reading. Whatever came to hand in the shape of tale, romance, history, poetry, he devoured with a large and unregulated appetite. But nothing can be made of such rare instances for general guidance. An intellect of such capacity as Scott's was, in a measure, independent of common discipline. The strength of the crav- ing itself may be truly said, in his case, to have more than " compensated the absence of any outward rule. It fastened instinctively on that which was suited to its tastes. It converted everything it touched into the nourishment it required. Nothing was wasted ; all was digest- ed and assimilated, and passed into the life- blood of his intellectual system." But what was the appropriate aliment of such an intellect as Scott's might prove the hurt and even the poison of a common mind. Assuredly, it can no more be the best thing to read in a desultory manner, than to do anything else in a desultory manner. No more than our industrial life could prosper if we merely did what came to hand, can our iiitcllectuaj life prosper if we merely read what HOW TO r?:a n. 67 oomes to hand. The very idea of intellectual discipline implies the application of some rule to our studies. But if the absence of rule be absurd a'.id hurt- ful, it is not less so — often it is more so — to en- deavour to order our reading by too strict and formal a rule. It is to be feared many young men make shipwreck of their plans by too am- bitious aims in this direction. For it is a great mistake to suppose that the young, and young men in particular, have a natural aversion to rules. Boys, perhaps, have. But there ic a time of life when a young man begins to be thoughtful, and to project schemes for his self-improve- ment, when he is really in more danger of yield- ing to an over-formality in his studies than any- thing else. And this danger has been prob- ably increased by the influence of '* Young Men's Associations," and the other institutions by which society seeks to help and promote this laudable impulse. The field of intellectual labour is mapped out by the young man, and he gives so much time to this department, and so much time to another department. He thinks it necessary to read certain books, and to make digests of them, although, after all, he feels very little interest in their contents, and is conscious that he gets but little intellectual be- nefit from them. He sets a scheme of study before him, and he labours at it with an unde- ; I ! ! :!! ! ! I. I :ii j8 how to SUdCEED IN TilFK. viatinjT rcfrularity and devotion, which, man} years after, he will look back upon with incre dulous amazement. Now there is something noble, beyond doubt, in such conduct. There is a seed of self-disci- pline in it which may bear fruit many days after, even if the .scheme of self-imposed study should break down and fail of its ends. But it is a serious misfortune — it may prove a ruinous re- sult — that it should break down, as such a scheme almost certainly will. In its nature it cannot last. It will fall to pieces of its own weight. For beyond a certain age the intellectual activi- ties cannot be drilled after this manner. They will not work by mere rule. Especially they become impatient of overdone and exaggerated rules. Everybody who has tried it, I think, will confess that there is nothing so hard as to carry on mere routine studies beyond the age of early manhood. The will shifts off the irksomencss of the duty in every possible manner. Keener intel- lectual interests are constantly supplanting those which lie to order before us. And the result sooner or later always is, that it is the study which really interests us that carries the day. All others fall aside, and are taken up at always wider intervals, till they drop out of sight altogether. The truth is, that the man cannot work after the same methods as the boy. Spontaneous edu- cation cannot proceed on the same principle.** i 1 1 now TO READ. Af) and rules as sclKtlastict-ducatioti. The latter has its chief support in external rules. It is under authority. Jiut the former must he sustained hy a constant outflow of the internal sympathy in which it takes its rise. A man will only continue to study that in which he feels a real interest and pleasure, constantly prompting him to mental ac- tivity. It will not be the books that others may suppose to be the right thing for him, but the l)ooks that he likes, the books that have an af- finity with his intellectual predilections, that lu: will read, and that will truly profit him.* So far, therefore, it may be concluded, in an- swer to the question, IIovv a young man shall read to the best advantage ? — that he .should select some particular department of knowledge which he feels interesting, and that within this depart- ment he should read carefully and studiously. If he on\" once make this selection, and make it rightly, other things will adjust themselves. HPe will not need very definite rules, nor will he need to concern himself about strict conformity with what rules he may have. The varied and desultory reading in which he may indulge will adapt itself in various ways to the main intel- lectual interest of his life. It will appropriate to its purpose the most stray information, while * "No profit grows where i., no p!ca<;ure la'cn ; In brief, sir, study -w/iat you most aJFcct " - JBthe oompendious advice of our great drumatic Poci; 60 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. ! M; I ; 1 I again the vivid central fire of his intellectual being will cast a light and meaning often around the most desultory particulars. It may not seem easy to make such a choice ; but every one more or less unconsciously makes it. The important matter is to recognise it to yourselves, and to build up your intellectual education upon it ; because it can be really built up in no other manner. It is only by studying some particular subject with a view to mastering it, or some parts of it, that you can ever acquire a really studious insight and power. Nothing will enable you to realise your mental gifts, and to feel yourselves in the free and use- ful possession of them, like the triumph of bring- ing within your power and making your own some special subject, so that you can look from the height of an accomplished difficulty, and ad- vance from the fulness of a successful faculty. • The advantage of such a central subject of in- tellectual interest is not only that it gives a unity to all your other reading, but that it preserves the idea of study — of steady and patient v*^ork in your mind. This is the best cure for desul- tory and self-indulgent literary habits. You feel that you have got something to do — that you are making progress in a definite direction — that you are rising to a clearer height of mental illumination over some pathway that you desire to explore. This is not only plea- trow TO READ. m aant, but it costs you pains, and it is all the more pleasant, certainly all the more improv- ing, that it does cost pains. For this is a con- dition of all genuine education, that it call foith a deliberate, anxious, and persistent mental action. It may not be a great subject that engages your interest, but it is not necessary that it should be so in order that you may gain great advantages from a studious attention to it ; for here, as in many cases, the " chase is better than the game." The power of mental discern- ment, the capacity of inductive inference, of sifting confused facts or statements, and pene- trating to the life of truth beneath them, are the highest gifts to be got. Definite results of knowledge are comparatively unimportant; for such gifts are, so to speak, the sinews of all knowledge. And when once you have mastered, or done what you can by strenuous energy to master, any one thing, you are prepared to enter on a wide increase of intellectual possessions. To plant your foot on any single spot of know- ledge, and make it your own by reading about it — by studying it in the light of whatever helps you can command — is to brace your mental vigour, and to secure it a free and powerful play in whatever direction it may be turned. Study, accordingly, should be definite. It is only some aim in view that can give to your intellectual employment the character of study. i li i^ i ! ! 19; '! il 68 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. Reading should neither be desultory nor rou- tine — but select. It is only some principle of selection that can impart continuity and life to your thoughts. What this principle of selection should be in each case, it is impossible to deter- mine. Every one must be the best judge for himself in such a matter. And if he do not force nature, or give it too much licence, he will have little difficulty in finding what lies closest to his interest. To every young man we com- mend the wise and weighty words of Bacon in his famous Essay on Studies. There is a pi- quancy and richness of exaggeration in them, here and there, that leave them above any mere imitation, but that serve to impress them all the more vividly upon the mind. " Studies," he says, " serve for delight, for ornament, and ability. Their chief use for de- light is in privateness and retiring ; for orna- ment, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business They perfect nature, and are perfected by ex- perience : for natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies ; simple men admire them ; and wise men use them ; for they teach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom with- out them and above them, won by observatioa if! ■|;f HO \V TO RE A D. r:, Read not to contradict and confute ; nor to be- lieve and take for granted ; nor to find talk and discourse ; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not cursorily ; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others ; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books ; also distilled books are like conmion distilled waters, flashy things. Reading makcth a full man ; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if lie read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to have that he doth not. Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathematics, subtle ; natural philosophy, deep ; morals, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to contend : " Abeunt studia in mores." Nay, there is no stond or impedi- ment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies ; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises ; bowling is good for the stone and reins ; shooting for the lungs and breast ; gentle walking for the stomach ; riding for the head ; and the like. So, if a man's wit i\ I 64 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. be wandering, let him study the mathematics ; for, in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again ; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen ; if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove or illustrate another, let him study the lawyer cases ; so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt" n 1 natics ; 1 away his wit :es, let apt to ing to iy the i may If II BOOKS— WHAT TO READ. OME books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." If this was true in Lord Bacon's time, how much more so is it in a time like ours, when books have multiplied beyond all precedent in the world's history. It has become, in fact, a task beyond the power of any man to keep up, as it is paid, with the rapidly-accumulating produc- tions of literature, in all its branches. To enter a vast library, or even one of comparatively mo- dest dimensions, such as all our large towns may boast, and survey the closely-packed shelves — the octavos rising above quartos, and duodecimos ^ ' ! ; ill It G6 HOW TO flUCCEED IN LIFE. above both — is apt to fill the mind with a sense of oppression at the mere physical impossi- bility of ever coming in contact with such mul- tiplied sources of knowledge. The old thought, Ars longUy vita hrvis, comes home with a sort of sigh to the mind. Many lives would be wasted in the vain attempt. The inspection of a large library certainly cannot be recommended to in- spire literary ambition. The names that shine in the horizon of fame are but specks amid the innumerable unknown that look down from the same eminence of repose. Yet this thought of incapacity— and of the vanity as well as the glory of literature — in the contemplation of a large library, is rather the thought of the ideal scholar than of common sense. The latter sees in a great collection of books the simple and efficient means of diffusing intellectual life through innumerable channels; and literary and political history, too, is pregnant with examples of the benefits which have sprung from mere vicinity to a well-stored library. It is not merely that genius has been excited, and the aspiration for fame kindled in some hearts where it might have otherwise lain torpid; but it is that hundreds have owned a happier intellectual, and often also a happier moral stimulus from such an advantage. Lord Mac- aulay has spoken of what he himself knew in this respect, and especially of an "eminent soldier and distin«fuished diplomatist who has WHAT TO READ. 6? a sense mpossi- ch mul- hought, I sort of : wasted a large d to in- at shine imid the rorp the 1 of the — in the ther the common xtion of diffusing lannels ; )regnant sprung ary. It excited, n some torpid ; happier moral d Mac- knew in eminent Bvho has enjoyed the confidence of the first geneials and statesmen which Europe has produced in our day," and who confessed that his success in life was mainly owing to his advantageous position //hen a young man in the vicinity of a library. ' When I asked to what he owed his accom- plishments and success, he said to me. When I served when a young man in India — when it was the turning-point in my life — when it was a mere chance whether I should become a mere card-playing, hooka-smoking lounger — I was fortunately quartered for two years in the neighbourhood of an excellent library which was made accessible to me." The influence of books at a certain stage of life is more than can be well estimated. The principles which they inculcate, the lessons which they exhibit, the ideals of life and char- acter which they portray, root themselves in the thoughts and imaginations of young men. They seize them with a force which to after years appears scarcely possible. And when their faculties in mere restlessness might con- sunie themselves in riotous frivolity and self- indulgence, they often receive in communion with bome true and earnest book a right Tm- pulse which turns them to safety, happiness, and honour. The task of selection perhaps might be fairly left to individual taste and judgment. Every t\, i 1 \ t i '■ 68 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. mind has an eclectic quality which inclines to its own proper mental food, and the choice of books must in the end mainly depend upon this. It may be very doubtful whether the choice is like 7 tr be according to the exalted advice of Bac . Lo that " every defect of the mind may have . spec a) receipt," This is too reflective a standard. It is only applicable after all within certain limits. To try to nourish the mind on what would be mainly medicine to it, would be no more possible than to nourish the body after a sin:ilar manner. A healthy appetite for what is fitti ig and congenial must be the main guide and unconsciously selective instrument of nutri- ment in both cases. Undoubtedly this appetite is feeble, and in many cases perverted. Nature, it may be said, does not set the same safeguard around it in the mental as in the physical world. The stomach rejects unwholesome food, but the minds of the young often feed on garbage, and even poison. There is some truth in this, but also some ex- aggeration. A healthy intellect which goes in search of its own intellectual food must be the basis of all spontaneous education. The cases in which this interest assumes a perverted crav- ing are not so much cases for advice as for defi- nite curative treatment of some kind. Our chief aim must be to ofTer some remarks which may serve to guide the healthy faculty for know- WHAT TO READ, 69 ledge. These remarks may be in the shape of warning as well as advice ; but the desire after self-improvement and intellectual discipline must be assumed in all who are likely to derive any benefit from them. While books have multiplied in such numbers, it may be truly said that good books are by no means oppressively numerous. They have not grown certainly in proportion to ti? eneral increase of literary productions. Ai. 1 there are those who delight to reckon up how few really first-rate authors they would be pleased to take with them into studious and coi Mited retire- ment. Shall we say that the young man should select a few such authors, and confine himself to their diligent and recurring study ? How ad- mirably would they mould his principles and refine his taste, and inspire and chasten his whole intellectual life I But this is really what the young man will never do, or almost never. Such schemes of studious devotion to a few great authors are rather the dreams of elder ease, and an over-curious culture, than ideas that ever enter into the heads of the young. They re- main dreams for the most part even with those who delight to court them. In conformity with their source, moreover, they are generally con- fined to authors of an older time, when thought seemed riper, and wit brighter, and poetry flushed with a richer imajjination than in these '^t 1i' 70 lion TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. last times. The intellectual Epicurean who would feed only on a few choice authors is generally also the laudator tonporis acti, and this of itself is enough to place his recipes for inte'lectual im- provement beyond the sympathy or imitation of the young. For if there is one law more sure than another in mental development, it is that the young must take their start in thought and in taste from the models of their own time — ^the men whose fame has not yet become a tradition, but is ringing in clear and loud notes in the ocial atmosphere around him. Such very ideal schemes of study, therefore, will not do for young men. They will read the authors of their time, and find their chief inte- rest in these authors. It requires a culture which as yet they are only in search of to find equal or even a higher interest in older forms of literature, and in the great masterpieces of the past. Books may be classified conveniently enough for our purpose in four divisions : — 1. Philosophical and Theological. 2. Historical. 3.. Scientific. 4. Books of Poetry and Fiction. The bare enumeration suggests visions of im- possible attainment. Even with such general divisions of the field of study before him, every WirJT TO UEAD. 71 young man must feel how far it exceeds his compass. He must choose, if he would do any good, some definite portion of the field ; and even confine himself mainly to some share of this, if he would turn his reading into an instrument of real education. The utmost we can hope to do is to indicate for his guidance some of the most characteristic features of these divisions, and some of the books in each that claim the atten tion of all that would be students in it. I. The first of these divisions may seem less *n the way of young men seeking a general cul- ture rather than a definite intellectual discipline. But, as we have already explained, it is only through some special study that any intellectual mastery can be gained ; and we commonly find that books in philosophy and theology are at once amongst the most attractive and the most effective sources of such study. The young man in the full flush of his opening powers is naturally drawn to the examination and discussion of the highest problems that concern his being and happiness. There is a sanguine daring of spe- culation in the fresh and inexperienced mind which dashes at questions before which the veteran philosopher, warned by many defeats, sadly recoils. It may be often very useless iu its results this youthful speculation, but, if not altogether misdirected, it may prove the most II x\ w I < t ! ill I ;i I 72 now TO SUCCEED TN LTFK precious training. The mind rises, from its very defeats in such service, more vigorous and more elastic. The philosophical literature of our country is, if not the most erudite and lofty, the richest, the most varied, and (not excepting that of France) the most intelligible philosophical literature of the world. It has the great virtue of keeping close to life and fact. And so there are few even of its masterpieces which may not be read and understood by the general reader. The great work of Locke on tlie ** Human Under- standing " may be said to be typical of it in this rrspect. No doubt there are schools of philo- sophy among ourselves, as well as in Germany, that profess to look down upon such empirical philosophy as that of Locke ; but we do not now enter into any such questions. The more spiritual philosophy may have the advantage ; for ourselves we think that it has ; but there is nevertheless something peculiarly British in the manly and straightforward simplicities of Locke's mind, and the intelligible, unpretentious character of his philosophy. Every young man who has a love for speculation, ought to study his works. He should try to master the great work we have just mentioned. At any rate, he should master his small work on the " Conduct of the Understanding;" and to make even this little treatise his own thoroughly, and enter into WHAT TO RIAD. 78 not more age; ere is in all its meaning, he will find a most bracing and wholesome mental exercise. The writings of Dr Reid, the great master, if not the father of the Scottish philosophy, par- take of the same vigorous and homely qualities as those of Locke, if of inferior range and grasp. The student will have recourse at least to the early work of this philosopher — "An Inquiry into the Human Mind " — as marking an im- portant epoch in British thought, and as cha- racterised by some of its most significant and instructive features. If he is really a student of philosophy, he will not be content with this, but he will delight to trace the developments of the Scottish school of thought, from its be- ginnings in Hutcheson's " System of Moral Philosophy," on through the writings of Reid, of Smith, of Stewart, of Brown, and of Hamil- ton. The great work of Smith, on the " Moral Sentiments," would of itself prove a most valuable discipline to any young phil- osopher. These are merely hints : of course they can be nothing more. There are other names equally ii not more important. There is the great name of Coleridge, who, from his deeper speculative sympathies, and richer culture, is more likely than any we have mentioned to draw the ad- miration of young students. TJiey could not come in contact with a liigher and more stimu- Q . . ' ■\:i ! : I 74 HO W TO SUVOEED IN LIFE. lating mind in many respects. The "Aids to Reflection " has been to thoughtful young men for two generations, perhaps, more of a handbook of speculation than any other book in the lan- guage, and much high-minded and noble seri- ousness has sprung from its study. It would be difficult to say that, taking all things into con- sideration, any book of the kind has higher claims upon the attention o^ the young. The great matter to bear in mind is, that variety of acquaintance with philosophical literature ought not so much to be the object as familiar ac- quaintance with and mastery of some particular work. The former is the part of the professed philosopher — the latter is the proper part of the student, to which the other may be added — should opportunity permit. The same thing is especially true in regard to Theological books. A knowledge of theological literature is the business of the professed theo- logian. It can only be possible to others in rare circumstances. But every thinking man should know something of theology, and there are young minds that will by an irresistible im- pulse seek their main intellectual discipline in the reading of theological authors. To such minds a few great books in our English theo- logical literature would be the appropriate and the highest aliment. But who shall venture to point out these } If the task is difficult in other j* ! Ii ^.ll i WHAT TO READ. 75 departments, it becomes in this almost hopelessly embarrassed. Men fight for sides in theology as they figlit for nothing else. The polemics of philosophy are sometimes keen, but the polemics of theology tear society asunder. They are felt to involve matters of life and death ; and every passion thiit makes life dear, and every int rest that makes death an anxiety, combine to intensify the struggle between rival theological systems. Peaceful and meditative spirits may sigh over this state of things, but probably it will last a.s long as the world lasts, and men are but dim searchers for truth amid the shadows of eai liiiy existence. It arises from this state of things that youn^ men have less freedom and openness of view in theology than in almost any other dei)artment of knowledge. They belong, so to speak, to a side which guards them jealously, and will let them see only one class of books. They are often taught to think that there is nothing good or excellent beyond these. This is an unhappy attempt — unhappy whether it succeeds or whe- ther it fails. For, in the one case, a narrow sectarianism, which does not so much care for truth as for party, is likely to be the result. And, in the other case, the mind is likely, when ith it, pia}-!Pg v it finds that a game has been and that thcie are mteresting tracks ol thcolo- \\\ I ii' lii :t;l •irrr- I ' I I i i - 1 If. i i 1 1 1 ■1 ■ ! i 76 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. gical inquiry of which it has been kept ignor- ant, to take a rebound to an opposite extreme, and run to wildness. It is better, however difficult it may be, to try to direct a spirit of inquiry in the young. To reject authority in this, any more than in any other department of knowledge, is a simple absurdity. From the very nature of the in- quiry, authority must be here especially valu- able. Yet at the same time to abandon free- dom, is to abdicate one's right of reason and of conscience, from which no good can ever come. But who is to assume the office of director.-* In reference to our existing theological litera- ture it may be safely said, that it would not be wise for any one to assume this function save in a most general manner. To adjudicate be- tween different schools of theological cpinion, some of which are only in progress of develop- ment, all of which have living representatives, would be an invidious and ungrateful ta.sk. U there are any minds can get satisfaction from the clever analysis that may be made of some of these schools with a view to warning off the young from them, the writer's mind is not of thiy class'. The unhappy thing is, that such warnings are more apt to point forwards than backwards, and this not through any moral perversity in the young, but from the mere insatiable desire of knowledge. There is a love in all hearts, and WHAT TO READ. 77 In the young theological heart more than all others, for the dangerous. If any book is labelled dangerous, there is a rush of curiosity towards it which no remonstrances can deter. Then there is this special difficulty. One constantly feels that he may be more in affinity with the spirit of an author whose views he might hesitate to recommend to the young, than with many authors whose views are of a more orthodox character. Who has not felt, for example, the charm of Robertson of Brighton's sermons, which have circulated so much among the young in our day.? There is a life in these sermons which sermons but rarely have — an energy of fresh, and genial, and loving earnest- ness which move the heart and search the springs of all religious feeling in the inquiring and thoughtful. Yet there are here and there rash and exaggerated utterances in them. One must take the evil with the good. And surely he would be a prejudiced father who would not rejoice to see his son moved by such sermons, his soul awakened, and life made more earnest to him, because they may contain some views of doctrine from which he may wish to guard his son. The wise parent would accept the good and try to avert the evil. He would do this by quiet and reasonable counsel, and not by mere dogmatism or angry argument. Passing from our current or recent theological r^ J 1 i! 1 m V. \ tM PI -■: •] l;!t 78 now TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. literature, there are three great writers, each marking a century, we may say, of our past Enf;-lish theology, that may be very confidently recommended to the study of young men. These writers are Butler, Leighton, and Hooker. — Butler, a master of theological argument, strong in logic, calm in spirit, comprehensive in aim. — Leighton, like Pascal, a genius in re- ligious m^itation, deep, reflective, yet quick, sensitive, and tender — the bcau-id4al of a Chris- tian muser ; never losing hold of the most prac- tical duties in the most ethereal flights of his quaint and holy imagination. — Hooker, a thinker of transcending compass, sweeping in the range of his imperial mind the whole cir- cumference of Christian speculatioii — rising \, ith the wings of boldness to the heights of the Divine government, and yet folding them with the sweet- est reverence ' ';fore the ; ij:iOne. There are many other -^i^At names in English theological literature, but there are none greater than these. There are none upon the whole that will form so admirable a discipline for the young. Some may prefer the passionate and majestic pages of Jeremy Taylor — the quaint spiritualising felicities of Hall — the didactic stately arguments of Pearson — the fervid and pleading pathos of Baxter ; but these, and many other writers, are more professional, so to Rp^Mk, in their interest. They do not command •iiich vide sympathies as the others do. They r Mi^'' \^H.\ WIT AT TO JiFJAD. /"O rire less likely to attract, therefore, and les<^ likely to influence the minds of the young. > ti Before passing from this class of books, it may be proper to say a special word or two as to the necessity of studying the Book of books— the Bible. A feeling of reverence almost prevents us from mentioning it in connexion with other books, as if it merely claimed its siiare of atten- tion along with them. It is implied, on the contrary, in the whole conception of there chap- ters, that its study must lie at the foundation oi all education. Every aspect of life and duty has been viewed by us in the light of the Divine Revelation of which the Bible is the record. And clearly, therefore, its reading must occupy a quite peculiar place. It is demanded of us in a sense in which the reading of no other book is demanded. They may or may not be read, but the Bible must be read by us as Chri.stians. We neglect a plain and bounden duty, and virtually disclaim the Chiistian char- acter, if we neglect to read it. Do young men sufficiently realise, even those of them who are thoughtful and well-intentioned, this necessity of reading the Scriptures .-* They read them, we shall suppose, at church and else- where — on Sunday, and other times too ; but are they at pains to understand what they read.** Do they make the Scriptu'cs a study? We fear that by young ns by old the Bible in I ilj I •■ ri ^rr" s" i'. 80 now TO SUCCEED TN LIFE. often read in a very imperfect and unintelligent nvanner. Not even the same trouble and in- quiry are given to it as to other books. And yet, more than any book for general perusal, it may be said to need such trouble and inquiry. It is marvellously adapted, indeed, to the unlearned as well as the learned. " He that runneth " may " read, mark, and inwardly digest " its simple truths ; but it also rewards and calls for the most patient, earnest, and critical devotion of mind. Its pages are fitted for the capacity of a child, yet they shew depths which the highest intellect cannot fathom. They contain "line upon line, here a little and there a little," for every docile, however untutored, Christian ; yet they also claim, in order to be adequately known, the most devoted powers of application and reflection. Every young man, therefore, should give his earnest attention to the reading of Scripture. Let him not suppose that he can easily know all that it contains. Let him not be contented to read a chapter now and then, rather as a duty than viS a living interest and education. No reading siiould be so interesting to him ; none, certaluiy, can form to him so high an education. It is not only his Christian intelligence and sensibHity that will be everywhere drawn forth in the perusal of its blessed pages, but his taste, his imagination, and reason will be exercisecl i : ! i i n WHAT TO READ. SI and regaled in the highest degree. Its poetry is, beyond all other poetry, incomparable, not only in the height of its Divine arguments, as Milton suggests, but in "the very critical art ot composition." Its narratives arc models of sim- plicity and grapliic life. It abounds in almost every species of htcrary excellence and intel- lectual sublimity. It is, above all, the inspired Word of God — the .source of all spiritual truth and illumination. Whatever you read, therefore, do not forget to read the Bible. Let it be as the " man of your counsel, and the guide of your right hand," as a "light to your feet, and a lantern to your path." "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple ; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart ; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." " Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way } By taking heed thereto according to thy word." 2. If we proceed now to Historical books, the task of selection becomes a less diffjrult one. Never, certainly, was an age richer in great his- torical works than our own. And not only so, but, what is more important still, the spirit of a higher historical method has penetrated many departments of inquiry, and is woiking out great results. It is the essence of this spirit to search if V ' 82 IiOW TO SVCCEED Ii\ LIFE, reputed facts to the bottom — to explore berjeath the accumulations of tradition and the glosses either of glory or of scandal with whi\:h great characters have been overlaid ; and although it may have in some instances run riot in mere opposition to popular and long-standing pre- judices, beyond doubt it has cleared up many of the outlines of the past, and made it nearer and more real to us than it had ever been before. Older histories, notwithstanding the fascination of their style, and the epic proportions of their detailf -rounded rather to suit imaginary precon- ceptions of the subject than its actual exigences — have been superseded, and new ones have taken their place. Hume, always charming by his graceful and flowing narralive. is no longer an authority. He was not even a very trustworthy reporter of what he read ; and others have read far more deeply than he ever did, and turned up facts of which he was wholly ignorant. The schoolboy fancy of many still living lingers with a fond and pleasing regret around the pages of Goldsmith's " History of Rome," and his graphic portraitures of Roman character ; but Rom.an history has been revolutionised in its very con- ception since Goldsmith's days. The spirit of this nev/ historical method is of grfri,,t importance to the young. It lies near to the root of all genuine education. The mind acquires from it the capacity of looking for the Wrur TO READ. sn truth — of sifting the essential from the .-wzciden- tal — the iivinc^ from the conventional — and pierc- ing below the incrustcd dogma of popular nar- rative or description to the direct face of facts. It learns an instinct of fairness — a tact of discern ment not easily seduced by arts of rhetoric or by any cleverness of special pleading. And there is no gain of education greater and none more rare than this power of critical and inde- pendent j udgment, which cares for what is right and true in the face of all partisanship and lies. Of the many great historical works which our age has produced, there are some so popular and universally read that it is needless to recommend them. Macaulay's wonderful volumes, as they successively appeared, carried captive the minds of old and young. The magic flow of his periods — the brilliant and dashing colours of his portraits — his illuminating comprehension of his subject, and the flush of radiance which he poured on certain parts of it — his rich political wisdom and magnanimous spirit of patriotism — all served to give to his " History of England " an attraction which has been seldom paralleled, and which only a very rare genius could have wielded and sustained. While the young read such a history with delighted enthusiasm, they should remem- ber that they must return to it and ponder it well before they can really get from it the mental strengthening and elevation it is fitted to afford. ii I 'f T h 11 ;'' 84 II O W TO S UCCKED IN LIFE, The works of Hallam, of Thirlwall and Grote, of Milinan and Prescott, of Froudc and of Motley, shew in their mere enumeration what a field lies before the student here. The careful study of any one of these histories is an educa- tion in itself ; and there is no mental task could be recommended as more appropriate and more valuable to the youn;^ man. Take Dean Mil- man's " History of Latin Christianity," for example, as covering the widest field of facts. What a quickening, bracing, and informing study would such a book make — all the more perhaps that it cannot be read like Macaulay's volumes, under the continued pressure of a high-wrought interest. In some respects, indeed, it is very hard and painful reading, in the old sense of the latter word. It costs pains — it strains the faculty of attention — it tasks and wearies the memory. All great histories, even Macaulay's, more or less do this. To read them as a whole is never an easy matter ; and it will be found, in point of fact, they are but rarely read and studied so com- pletely as they ought to be. The young man cannot brace himself to any higher effort, or one more likely to tell upon his whole intellectual life. The study of such works as we have men- tioned, or of many others that might be men- tioned — Clarendon's graphic pages — Gibbon's magnificent drama — may serve to date an epoch in his educational development. Many can recall how the perusal of such a masterpiece as Gib- IVHAT TO READ. 85 rib- boil's "Decline and I'^all of the Roman I'jnpire" served to raise the conception of wliat tiki human miiid could do, and left an indelible impress on the intellectual character. In studyinf^ such works the aim should be to master them, and' if possible their subject, so tho- roughly as to be able to exercise a free judi;ment as to what you read. To read merely that you may repeat the views of the historian, or perhaps imbibe his prejudices, is a poor and even an in- jurious result. You must read rather that you may understand his subject ; and if he is really a great historian, he will tniable you to do this to some extent independently of his own repre- sentations. Using his pages, you must yet look through them, and endeavour to realise the course of facts for yourself. Especially aim, by an active sympathy and intelligent perception of what is going on around you, — of the history tlu t is being daily wrought out under your eyes and in your own experience, — to get somelivingappre- hension of the past, some real understanding of its great events and characters, its social man- ners, its laws, institutions, and modes of govern- ment, the condition of the people in their difife- rent ranks and relations, the interior of their family life, their diet, their industry, and their amusements. It is but recently that historians have recognised the necessity of treating some of these topics, but it is becoming more and more evident that it is such topics, and not il i»l'i ! I i' i, f II ■ ! , fjt ^. Av^< IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 m m ■ 2.2 Hi us u tyub 140 2.0 U 11.6 -► Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. USSO (716) 872-4S03 '«v:V^ '^ '\^:^ ^4^ ^ r V 86 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE, the mere details of battles or of royal doings, that form the real staple of history. What- ever contributes to unveil the past, to make it an intelligible reality and not a mere shadowy picture, is the right material of history; and its highest use is to give such an insight into the past as may happily guide and influence the future. According to the old definition, "history is philosophy teaching by examples;" and the constant instruction which it presents to the student is certainly among its greatest advan- tages. While calling into strenuous exercise so many faculties of the understanding — attention, memory, comprehension — and filling the ima- gination with its grand outlines, it ministers no less to the moral reason and judgment. It is everywhere a drama of moral retribution. And so it is that soni^thing of the same lofty feeling — half-pleasure, half-awe — that comes from the perusal of a great tragedy, comes also from the perusal of a great history. The realities of a higher Divine order, everywhere traversing the complications of human intrigue — the confusions of earthly politics — shew themselves in unmis- takeable radiance. They come forth like the handwriting on the wall, stamping themselves in silent characters amid all the excitements of human conflict, and the promiscuous uproar of human passion. WHAT TO READ. 87 The student, therefore, if he learn anything, should learn political and moral wisdom in the school of history. Such volumes as Macaulay's and Motley's must teach him how political suc- cess can only be effectually grounded on fair- ness, rectitude, and truth. Manoeuvre may suc- ceed, and falsehood triumph for a while, but their end is shame and discomfiture. Of the many excellences of Mr Motley's historical labours, one of the chief is the clearness with which he has seized the moral element in his- tory, and wrought it into the fabric of his narra- tive, not by way of dogmatic obtrusion, but simply as a natural part of his subject. The reader is not merely thrilled with a vivid story, and the life-like delineations of one of the most powerful pencils that ever sketched human cha- racter and action ; but he is, moreover, touched at every point by the unfolding lessons of u ^reat moral spectacle. 3. Of Scientific books it is scarcely for one to speak who has not given some special attention to the subject. Our age, however, is more rife in such books as may help the young in culti- vating scientific inclinations than any other age has been. Of all departments of knowledge, indeed, that of popular science may be said to be making the most advance. And the most competent judges will allow that much real pro- P Ill ^S HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. gress may be made in scientific attainment by the mere energy of attention, by experiment, and careful observation of phenomena, without the qualifications of the higher mathematics, which fall to the lot of but a few. Certainly much of the intellectual discipline of scientific study may be got by independent and self- directed efforts. Some of the most distinguished names in science have been self-taught students. Among the departments of knowledge there are those who claim for science the very highest function in education. And without entering into any polemic on the subject, there can be no doubt that it aftbrds educational advantagt-s of the noblest kind. It is impossible to study the great laws of nature, the wonderful compli- cations of its phenomena, and the beautiful rela- tions which link and harmonise them, without having our mental and our moral faculties equally stimulated. The mechanism of the heavens — the structure of the earth, and its countless living objects — the structure of our own bodies- -the composition of the air we breathe — the light whereby we see — the dust on which we tread — are all subjects equally fitted to discipHne and delight our minds. And he can scarcely claim, in any sense, to be an educated man, who remains entirely ignorant of such subjects. It is true that man long remained ignorant of them, and that tlie intellectual civi- i: WHAT TO READ. 89 lisation of the ancient nations was based but in a small degree on any accurate knowledge ol physical phenomena. But this can be no excuse for modern ignorance of the same phenomena. It is the mark of a small and contracted mind to shun any department of knowledge, and one especially of such intense interest and import- ance. Why, indeed, should there be any conflict between one department and another.-* Why should the advocates of classical and of "useful" knowledge hold high contention, and vex the educational atmosphere with their din ^ Both are excellent in their place. The former never could perish 3ut of human culture without ruinous loss. The latter must advance as the very con- dition of human progress. To some minds the former will prove the fitting discipline — to others the latter. For the classicist to abuse natural studies, or the physicist to abuse classical studies, is equally absurd. Assuredly the study of nature is no mere dry and " useful " study. It is instinct with poetry and thought at every point ; and in our own day many writers have clothed the truths of science in the most elevated and attractive diction. Sir John Herschel, Sir David Brewster, Hugh Mil- ler, Mr Lewes, Mr Hunt, and others have all written of science so as to interest any but the most indifferent minds. And the young student \\ « f i 00 no W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. who would follow out such studies will find in the writings of these well-known authors at once their plainest and their highest guides. Such works as those of Hugh Miller on geology, and Mr Lewes's " Sea-side Studies," and Professoi Johnston's " Chemistry of Common Life," and Mr Faraday's " Lectures for the Young," not to mention others, shew how numerously books lie to his hand in this department of study ; and many of these books are marked by the highest qualities of thought and expression, with which no young mind can come in contact without the utmost good. In such studies let it be your aim not marely to accumulate facts, nor store your memories with details, but also to grasp principles. It is from lack of doing this that many minds turr away in weariness from scientific pursuits. They are repelled by needless particulars, whose inter- dependence and relation they fail to perceive. Most of the writers we have mentioned will help the student to a higher point of view than this. Most of them, moreover, will inspire him with the poetry as well as the utility of his subject. And this is a great gain. For youthful study advances under a spur of poetic enthusiasm more than anything else. Carry- this enthusiasm with you into the study of nature. • Learn to appreciate its beauties, to admire its harmonies. as you explore its secrets. This is surely the WTJAT TO READ. n natural result that should follow an increased acquaintance with scientific facts. The more nature is studied, the more should all its poetry appear. As one has asked, who has defended somewhat extravagantly, but also eloquently and forcibly, the value of scientific education,* " Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses anything in the eye of the physicist, who knows that its elements are held together by a forc6 which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a flash of lightning? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake does not suggest higher associations to one who has seen through a microscope the wondrously - varied and elegant forms of snow crystals? Think you that the rounded rock, marked with parallel scratches, calls up as much poetry in an ignor- ant mind as in the mind of a geologist, who knows that on this rock a glacier slid a million years ago ? The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits are blind to most of the poetry by which they are sur- rounded. Whoever has not in youth collected plants and insects knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedgerows can assume. Whoever has not sought for fossils has little idea of the poetical associations that surround the * Mr Herbert Spencer— Education, p. 45. ill n HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE, places where embedded treasures were found. Whoever at the sea-side has not had a micro- scope and aquarium have yet to learn what the highest pleasures of the sea-side are." 4. Books of Poetry and Fiction are the last class that wc have enunciated. In many respects they are the most important. To some, indeed, it may seem that such books cannot compete in an educational point of view with the graver compositions of philosophy, history, and of science, of which we have been speaking. But this would be a narrow judgment. In every generation it will be found, on the contrary, that the works of what have been called belles lettrcs have exercised over the young a wide and more stimulating influence than almost any others. And naturally so. For it is the special aim of such works to idealise all that is most attractive in nature or in life to the young, to paint in the most vivid experiences the passions, feelings, and aspirations that animate and please them. It becomes, therefore, so far as the young are concerned, a most important consideration of what quality the poetic and fictitious literature of their time may be. They will read it. It is needless to declaim against novel-reading, or try to thwart it. All such attempts betray a narrow ignorance of human nature, and, above all, of youthful human nature. The nursery talc, and 1 WHAT TO READ. 98 the fascinated fireside that draws around it, mifjht teach such ignorant moralists a higher lesson. The truth is, that the mind of the child — of the boy — of the youth — craves as one of its most na- tural interests fictitious or ideal representations of human life and character, of events in intricate and marvellous combination. Holding as yet but slackly to reality, and imperfectly compre- hending the entangled panorama of the social world around, it is a true education as well as a delightful amusement for it to study human nature in the mimic scenes of the novelist or the poet. It can never, therefore, avail to indulge in polemic, religious or otherwise, against novel- reading. In excess or misdirected, such reading is hurtful, and even dangerous, to moral principle, as well as intellectual strength ; but any other sort of reading would be also more or less hurt- ful if excessive and ill directed. The cure for this is not abstinence, but regulation. Fiction will be always an important and exciting ele- ment of education — to the young especially so ; and the great matter here and everywhere should be to guide their taste, and not vainly to try to e^ttinguish it To every Christian parent and teacher it should be a source of 'infcigned congratulation that our modern light literature is of such an improved character. It may not only be read I 94 £lOW to succeed IN L lEE. for the most part with impunity by the young, but is fitted in many respects to form a high and valuable discipline for them. If any one wishes to measure the change that has taken place in it, he has only to turn to the most cha- racteristic fiction and poetry of the last century, and see what a different spirit animates them. It is not only that we miss in them the same positive character of good, but that we meet everywhere with positive elements of evil. The moral spirit is not only not pure, but is some- times corrupted to an extent that makes us shrink from contact with works which in the rare power and charm of their genius have become immortal. Notwithstanding their varied excel- lences, their vigour and robustness of thought, the grace, felicity, and finish of their style, their bright and ingenious wit, and sparkling, easy- hearted gaiety, there are many of the most not- able of these works seriously not fit for youthful perusal — so deeply poisoned are they with the taint of grossness and defiling insinuation. And even where this is not the case, there is little that is morally elevating or noble in the fictitious writings of the last century. Life as a whole — in its complete conception of a moral reality, struggling with difficulties and beset by tempta- tions, and victorious by principle — is but feebly represented. The main struggle is that of pas- sion — the main interest that of intrigue — al) WHAT TO READ. centred round a narrow and comparatively low conception of life. The Clarissas and Lovelaces, the Leonoras and Horatios, the crowd ©f Bel- indas, Celindas, and Eugenias, and even the hearty and courteous pleasantry of Sir Roger de Coverley, and- the well-meant fun of Isaac BickcrstafT, Esq., are but one-sided and inade- quate representations. Piquant and interesting as they may be, no one would say the young could get much good of any kind from the study of them. It is in the main fashionable comedy or the mere tragedy of lower passion. Our present literature presents a marked con- trast to these characteristics. It is informed with a dci per feeling, and altogether a more sacred, a hi' ' cr idea of life. It is, in fact, matter for icism that our fiction has tres- passed too oi-'viously on ethical and religious grounds, and sought to point its moral too ob- trusively, instead of merely "holding up the mirror " to all that is most beautiful and earnest in human faith and life. This is a casual excess — the recoil of the spring after having been depressed unduly. The advantage is unequi- vocal in a moral, whatever it may be in an artistic, point of view. All that is most charac- teristic and excellent in our present fiction wc unhesitatingly commend to the perusal of the young. There is a pervading presence of good m it — the reflection of a spirit that loves the i ^1 *)6 no W TO FfUCCEED IN L TFE. good and hates the evil. The foHi'es and vices of society are exposed by a Thackeray with a pencil which borrows none of its powers or piquancy from contact with the degradation which it paints. The kindly spirit, warning to what is noble and self-sacrificing, rejoicing in what is tender and true, everywhere looks from beneath the caustic touches of the satirist, or the dark colours of the artist* In our most familiar sketches and caricatures there may be sometimes feebleness, but there is never pruriency ; a free, yet delicate handling pervades them, exciting laughter without folly, and warranting their in- troduction into families without fear of starting a blush on the most modest cheek, or exciting the least questionable emotion. Looking to the moral effect of our modern poetry and fiction upon the young, there is nothing more deserving of commendation than the increased spirit of human sympathy for which they are remarkable. The literature of the last age was especially defective in this respect. It lacked genial tenderness or earnest sympathy for human suffering and wrong. Its very pathos was hard and artificial. It wept over imaginary sorrows ; it rejoiced in merely sentimental triumphs. In contrast to this, the poetry and fiction of our time * This, we are sorry to say, is scarcely true of some of Ml Thackeray's recent delineations — such as " Lovel the Widower,* n WHAT TO READ. 97 concern themselves closely with the common sorrows and joys of the human heart. The pages of Dickens and Kingsley, and Miss Mu- lock and Mrs Gaskell, and Mrs Oliphant and George Kliot, are all intensely realistic. A deep-thoughted tenderness for human miseries, and a high aspiration after human improvement, animate all of them. It is impossible to read their novels without having our moral senti- ments acutely touched and drawn forth. The same is eminently true of the poetry of Mr Tennyson, Mrs Browning, and others. It is almost more than anything characterised by a spirit of impassioned philanthropy, of intense yearning over worldly wrong and error, •' ancient forms of party strife," and of lofty longing after a higher good than the world has yet known — "Sweeter manners, purer laws, The larger heart, the kindlier hand." It is impossible for the young to love such poetry and to study it without a kindling in them of something of the same affectionate interest in human welfare and aspiration after human improvement. In both our fiction and poetry, life is pre- sented if not in its fully sacred reality, yet as an earnest conflict with actual toils and duties and trials — a varied movement, neither of frivolity nor profligacy, (as in so much of our older imaginative literature,) but of work and I r ■ 1 ■ ■ ] u ,; V. \ 98 HOW TO SVCCEED IN LIFE, passion, of mirth and sorrow, of pure affection and every-day trial. The picture is realised by all as true and kindred. It comes home to us, moving us with a deeper indignation at wrong, or a holier tenderness for suffering, or a higher admiration of those simple virtues of gentleness, and love, and long-suffering, which, more than all heroic deeds, make life beautiful, and purify and brighten home. A literature thus true to the highest interests of humanity — seek- ing its worthiest inspiration and most touching pictures in the common life we all live — in the darkness and the ligh*^ there are in all human hearts, the wrongs and sufferings, the joys and. griefs, tlu: struggles and heroisms that are every- where around us ; — ^sucli a literatuiv. has a seed of untold good in it, and, forming as it does the chief mental food of thousands of young men, it must help to develop virtue, and strengthen true, and generous, and Christian principle. It is such a literature, although in still grander and more sacred proportions, that Milton pictured to hiuLsclf in one of his splendid passages : — " These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most obscure) in every nation ; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to inbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility; to allay the perturbations of the mind, and to set tho WHAT TO READ, 00 affections on a right tune ; to celebrate in glori- ous and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what He works and what He suffers to be wrought with high provi- dence in His Church; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints ; the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nation^, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and God's true worship. Whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath pas- sion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fiction from without, or the only subtleties and reflexes of man's thought from within — all these things with a solid and tract- able smoothness to point out and describe — teaching over the whole book of sanctity, through all the instances of example, with such delight to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will not so much as look upon truth herself unless they see her elegantly dressed : that whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difiicult, though they indeed be easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed." It is unnecessary for us to try to point out further those works in our modern poetry and fiction which deserve the attention of young 11 'i\ I 100 ffO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE men. Of course, they will read what is most popular and interesting. There is one writer, however, neither a poet nor a novelist, and yet in some respects both, whom we feel urged to commend to their study — the author of "Friends in Council," "Essays written in the Intervals of Business," and " Companions of my Solitude," &c. These volumes are charming, at once for their literary finish, their genial earnest- ness, and their thoughtful, ethical spirit. A vivid sense of the sacred power of duty ; a quiet, glancing humour, which lights up every topic with grace and variety ; a shrewd know- ledge of the ^"orld and its ways, tinged with sadness, pervade Ihcm, and are fitted to render them eminently impressive and improving to the young and book-loving. They invite by their easy, genial, and attractive style ; they inform, instruct, and discipline by their broad and observant wisdom, and the wide intelligence and keen love of truth with which they discuss many important questions. We should further urge upon young men the necessity of extending their studies in the lighter depariments of literature beyond their own age. They must and will read mainly, as we have supposed, the fiction and poetry of their time, but in order to get any adequate culture from this sort of reading they must do something more. They must study English ! i WHAT ",'() ::i:ad 101 iOSt iter, yet •gcd r of the . f my g>at nest- A y; a every cnow- with cnder g to e by they Ibroad tence ■o liscuss men in the their ily, as Iry of Iquate ist do ^iglisli poetry in its successive epochs, ascending by such stages as are represented by the great names of Wordsworth, and Cowper, and Dry- den, and Milton, and Shakspeare, and Spenser. To study thoroughly the great works of any of these poets, especially of Wordsworth, or Milton, or Shakspeare, or Spenser, is a last ing educational gain. Any youth who spends his leisure over the pages of the " Excursion," or the " Paradise Lost," or tlie " Fairy Queen," or the higher dramas of Shakspeare, is engaged in an important course of intellectual discipline. And if you would wish to know the charms of Kterary delight in their full freedom and ac- quisition, you must have often recourse to these great lights of literature, and seek to kindle your love for "whatsoever hath passion or admira- tion " at the flame of their genius. Altogether it is evident what a wide field o^ study is before every young man who loves books, and would seek to improve himself by their study. The field is only too wide and varied, were it not that different tastes will seek different parts of it, and leave the rest compara- tively alone. Whatever part you may select, devote yourself to it If history, or science, or belles lettres be your delight, read with a view not merely to pass the time, but really to culti- vate and advance your intellectual life. The 4' 1 oo HOW TO SUCCEED TN LIFE. mere dilettante will never come to anything. Read whatever you read with enthusiasm, with a f^cnerous yet critical sympathy. Make it your own. Take it up by lively and intelligent application at every point into your own mental system, and assimilate it. This is not to be done without pains. Many never attain to it. And so they read, and continue to read, and find no good. They are no wiser nor better after than before, simply because they read mechanically. They have a sense of duty in the matter which prescribes the allotted task, but they do not take care that the task be interesting as well as imperative. An active interest, however, is a condition of all mental impfo/ement. The mind only expands or strengthens when it is fairly awakened. Give to all your reading an awakened attention, a mind alive and hungering after knowledge, and whether you read history, or poetry, or science, or theology, or even fiction of a worthy kind, it will prove to you a mental discipline, and bring you increase of wisdom. I. HOW TO ENJOY. VERY life that is at all hcakhy and happy must have its enjoyments as well as its duties. It cannot bear the constant strain of grave occupa- tion without losing something of its vitality and sinking into feebleness. Asceticism may have construed life as an unceasing routine of duty — of work done for some grave or solemn pur- pose. But asceticism has neither produced the best work nor the noblest lives of which our world can boast. In its effort to elevate human nature, it has risen at the highest to a barren grandeur. It has too often relapsed into moral weakness or • perversity. Human nature, as a 104 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. prime condition of health, must recreate itself— must have its moments of unconscious play, when it throws off the burden of work, and rejoices in the mere sensation of itii own free activity. And youth must especially have such oppor- tunities of recreation. It thirsts for them — it is all on the alert to catch them ; and if denied to it, it dwindles from its proper strength, or pur- sues illegitimate and hurtful gratifications. A young man without the love of amusement is an unnatural phenomenon ; and an education that does not provide for recreation as well as study would fail of lit higher end from the very ex- clusiveness with which it aims to reach it. Yet it must be admitted that the subject of recreation is one attended with peculiar diffi- culties. Not, indeed, so long .s youth remains at school, and under the guidance of external authority. It is then little more than a matter of games and healthy exercise, in which the animal spirits are chafed into pleasant excite- ment, and the physical frame hardened into healthy vigour. The proportion which such school recreation should bear to school work — the best modes of it — the games which are best fitted for youth in its different stages — and the organisation necessary to give them their happiest effect — are all points which may re- quire attention, or involve some discussion. But I- now TO ENJOY. 105 the peculiar difficulties of the subject do not emerge so far. It is only when youth has out- grown the bcholastic age, and begun life on its K >wn account — when it has tasted the freedom and the power of opening manhood — that re- creation is felt to run closely alongside of temptation, and that the modes and measures in which it should be indulged are found to involve considerations of a very complex and delicate character. Neither here nor anywhere is it the intention of the writer to lay down formal rules, but rather to suggest principles. Nothing, probably, less admits of definite and unvarying rules than amusement. Its very nature is to be somewhat free from rule. It is the gratification of^an impulse, and not the following out of a plan. To lay down plans of amusement is to contra- dict the very instinct out of which it springs, and to convert recreation into work. No man, certainly, can be kept safe from harm by enclos- ing himself in a palisade of rules, and allowing himself to enjoy this, and refusing to enjoy that. Moral confusion, and, consequently, weakness, is more likely to come from such a course as this than anything else. The best and the only effectual guide we can have is that of a rightly- constituted heart, which can look innocently abroad upon life, and which, fixed in its main principles and tendencies, is comparatively heed- ■s « ,; I ^' i: 100 now TO Fii'rnEED jn ltfe. less of details. It is from within, and not from without — from conscience, and not from law, that our highest monition must come. Young men must seek freedom from temptation in the strength of a Divine communion that guards them from evil. This is primary. Se- condarily, there are certain outward occasions of temptations which it may be incumbent upon them to avoid, and to which we shall give a few words in another chapter. Primarily and essentially, the heart must be rightly fixed in order to innocent enjoyment. Nothing else will avail "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do," says the apostle, " do all to the glory of God." There is a pro- found significance in this text. Our lives, not merely in some points or relations, but in all points and relations, must be near to God, Not merely in our solemn moods, or our grave occu- pations, but in our ordinary actions, our mo- ments of enjoyment, our eating and drinking, (the emblematic acts of enjoyment,) must we recognise and own the presence of God. The grand idea of the glory of God, and the most common aspects of life, are in immediate rela- tion to one another. And this points to an essential and distin- guishing characteristic of Christianity. It is no mere religion of seasons or places ; it is no mere now TO KX.iOY 107 acries of things to be believed, noi of duties tci be done ; it rests upon the one, and prescribes the other ; but it is more characteristically than either a new spirit and life pervading the whole moral and mental activities, and colouring and directing them at every point. The Christian is brought within the blessed sphere of a Divine communion that animates all his being. From the happy centre of reconciliation with God, there goes forth in him a life — it may be very imperfect, answering but feebly to its own as- pirations, yet a life touched in all its energies with a Divine quickening, and bearing on all a Divine impress. In such a life there is and can be nothing unrelated to God. Awful thought as the glory of God is, so soon as the soul is turned into the light of the Divine love, that glory is ever near at hand, and not afar off to it. There is nothing common nor unclean to the Christian. He cannot lead two lives ; he can- not serve the world with the flesh, and serve God with the spirit. He may often do this in point of fact. The law in his members may prove too strong for the better law of his mind, and bring him into captivity to the law of sin and death in his members. But all this is in contradiction to the ideal of the Christian life ; it is in no respect reconcileable with it. In its conception, it is a whole and not a part — a whole consecrated to God — a living, breathing, har- • u M ? ;-^| f 11 .08 I r.'-* »-ir f. TO SUCCEKD IN LIFE, Dionioiis reality, all whose aspirations are God- ward. It is clear that to such a Christian the question of enjoyment will not present itself so much in detail as in principle. His first concern will be not what he should do or not do — whether he should court this amusement or reject it, take this liberty or deny himself it ; but what he is — whether he is indeed within the sphere of Divine communion and sharing in its blessing. He will not seek to mould his life from the outside, but to give free play and scope to the Divine Spirit strong within him, that it may animate every phase of his activity, and sanctify all that he does. If any young man asks, how he is to enjoy himself, in what way he may yield to those instincts of his nature which crave for amuse- ment, he must first ask himself the serious ques- tion. Whether he is right at heart.? Has he chosen the good.? Unless there is a settlement of this previous question, the other can scarcely be said to have any place. For if God is not in all his life, it must be of little practical conse- quence to him whether one enjoyment be more or less dangerous than another. Everything is dangerous, because undivine to him. He sees God nowhere. The light of the Divine glory rests on nothing to him ; and the most noble work, therefore, no less than the most trivial amusement, may serve to harden his heart and now TO ENJOY, ion leave him more godless than before. But again, if he has settled this prime question, and chosen the good, then he will carry with him into all his indulgences the Spirit of the good. That Spirit will ward off evil from him, and guard him in temptation, and guide him in difficulty. He will not be scrupulous or afraid of this or that ; but he will take enjoyment as it comes, and as his right. He will feel it to bdia little thing to be judged of man's judgment, and yet he wiH be careful not to offend his brother. All things may be lawful to him, but all things will not be expedient. He will use a wise discretion — re- fraining where he might indulge, using his liberty without abusing it, eating whatsoever is set before him, asking no questions ; and yet when questions are started, obviously sincere, and arising out of moral scruples, he will abstain rather than give offence. He will have, in short, a wise discernment of good and evil, a tact of judgment which will guide him far better than any mere outward rules. The question, How to enjoy? is therefore in its right sense always a secondary, never a primary question. It comes after the question of duty, and never before it ; and where the main ques- tion is rightly resolved, the secondary one be- comes comparatively easy of solution. Principle first : Play afterwards. And if there be the root of right principle in us, we will not, need not, i Ml 1 10 now TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. trouble ourselves minutely as to modes of amuse- ment. We will take enjoyment with a free and ample hand, if it be granted to us. We will know how to want it, if it be denied to us. We will know both how to be abased and how to abound; and in whatever state we aro, therein learn, like the great apostle, to be content. :t Of one thing we may be sure. Enjoyment in •tsclf is meant to be a right and blessing, and not a snare. This is a very important truth for the young to understand. Life is open to them; anmsement is free to them. They are entitled to live freely and trustfully, and enjoy all — if only the sense of duty and of God remain with them — if only they do nut forget that for all these things God will bring them into judgment. Under this proviso they may taste of enjoyment as liberally as their natures crave, and their opportunities offer. To preach anything else to the young, is neither true in itself nor can pos- sibly be good to them. To teach them to be afraid of enjoyment, is to make them doubtful of their own natural and healthy instincts ; and as these instincts remain, nevertheless, and con- stantly reassert their power, it is to introduce an element of hurtful perplexity into their life. They are urged on by nature; they are held back by authority. And if the rein of the outward law imposed upon tlicni once break, they arc plungci llOyy TO ENJOY. Ill into darkness. They have no guide. It is vain to enter into this struggle with nature : it is cruel and wrong to do it. Nature must have play, and is to be kept within bounds by its own wise training, and the development of a higher spirit within, and not by mere dictation and arbitrary compulsion from without. There is no point, perhaps, upon which edu- cation of every kind more frequently fails than upon this very point — the education which we give ourselves, as well as that which others give us, in youth. For it is a mistake to suppose, as we have hinted in a former chapter, that the sole or perhaps the chief danger of young men is, that they are too indulgent to themselves. Muny are so. Many unthinking youths may so give the rein to nature in its lower sense that every high and pure impulse is destroyed in them. Ikit of those who are capable of thought, and who aim at self-culture, not a few are more likely to break down in their aims from striving after too much than too little. They are apt to gird themselves with rules, and to lay artifi- cial yokes upon the free development of their nature, rather than to yield too much to its own elastic impulses. They become very stern theorists some of these young men, and they look on life with a hard and dogmatic assur- ance, parcelling out with a formal and ignorant hand the good and evil in it. They are wist: If! 112 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. ; I as to the kinds of enjoyment, and rigidly carry out their own maxims, as well as seek to enforce them upon others. This is not the spirit from which there ever groweth a fine and noble character in a young man. It lacks the first essential of all youthful nobleness — modesty — the freshness of a trustful docility. The chance is that it breaks down altogether in its theoretic confidence, as ex- perience proves too strong for it ; or that it matures into a narrow fanaticism which misin- terprets both life and religion, and proves at once a misery to itself and a nuisance to others. Ascetic formality is the refuge of a weak moral nature, or the wretchedness of a strong one. How far even a noble mind may sink under it, — to what depths of despairing imbecility and almost impiety it may reach, — we have only to study the austerities of Pascal to see. We are told that " Pascal would not permit himself to be conscious of the relish of his food ; he pro- hibited all seasonings and spices, however much he might wish for and need them ; and he actually died because he forced the diseased stomach to receive at each meal a certain amount of aliment, neither more nor less, whatever might be his appetite at the time, or his utter want of appetite He wore a girdle armed with iron spikes, which he was accus- tomed to drive in upon his body (his tleshless i now TO ENJOY. 113 ribs) as often as he thought himself in need ol such admonition. He was annoyed and offended if any in his hearing might chance to say that they had just seen a beautiful woman. He re- buked a mother who permitted her own children to give her their kisses. Towards a loving sister, who devoted herself to his comfort, he assumed an artificial harshness of manner for the express purpose^ as he acknowledged, of revolting her sisterly affection." And all this sprung from the simple principle that earthly enjoyment was inconsistent with religion. Once admit this principle, and there ih no limit to the abject and unhappy consequences that may be drawn from it. The mind, thrown ofT any dependence upon its own instincts, is cast into the arms of .some blind authority or dogmatism which tyrannises over it, reducing it more frequently to weakness than bracing it up to endurance and heroism. No doubt it will be the impulse of every Christian man, and it ought no less to be so of every Christian youth, to "rejoice with trem- bling." While he hears the voice saying to him, on the one hand, " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cht cr thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes ; " he will not forget the voice that says to him, on the other ■'■! Jl If ;■ 4 114 HOW TO S UCCEED IN LIFE. hand, " But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." The voices are one, in fact ; and if he is wise he will ac- knowledge their unity, and be sober in his very mirth, and temper the hour of cheerfulness with the thought of responsibility. There is some- thing in the heart itself, even in the heart of the young, that intimates this as the true mean. There is often a monition of warning in the very moment of mirth. The joy is well. It is the natural expression of a healthy and well-ordered frame ; it leaps up to meet the opportunity as the lark to greet the morn. The movement of nature is as clear in the one case as in the other ; yet there is a background of moral conscious- ness lying behind the human instinct, and always ready to cast the shadows of thought— of reflec- tive responsibility over it. Rejoice, it says ; but rejoice like one who is a moral being, and whose primary law, therefore, is not enjoyment, but duty. Moreover, there is that which immediately re- minds us of the same truth in the result which follows all excess of enjoyment. The tide of feeling, when it rises to an unwonted height of joyful elation — certainly when it allows itself to be carried away by mere thoughtless and boisterous impulse — almost invariably returns upon itself, collapses in reaction and exhaustion. Our constitution contains within itself^ a check How TO ENJOY. 115 ings >ices ac- very with 3me- ft of nean. a the is the dered ity as ent of other ; cious- ways reflec- but whose t, but ly re- which ide of height itself is and eturns lustion. check to all undue excitement. This check is, no doubt, often ineffectual, but it is so at the expense of the constitution, and the very capacity of enjoyment which may overtask it- self. This capacity wastes by excessive use. Of nothing may the young man be more sure than this. If he will rejoi c without thought and without care in the days of his youth, he will leave but little power of enjoyment for his manhood or old age. If he keep the flame ot passion burning, and plunge into excitement after excitement in his heyday, there will be nothing but feebleness and exhaustion in his maturity. He cannot spend his strength, and have it too. He cannot drink of every source of pleasure, and have his taste uncloyed, and his thirst fresh as at the first. There is need here of a special caution in a time like ours. There are young men who now-a-days exhaust pleasure in their youth. The comparative freedom of modern Irfe en- courages an earlier entrance into the world, and an earlier assumption of manly manners and hafbits than was wont to be. Pleasure is cheaper and more accessible — the pleasure of travel, pleasure of many kinds ; and it is no uncommon thing to find yuung men who have run the round of manly pleasure before they have well attained to man's estate, and who are dlas4 with the world before the time that ;i*iH I! 5lii .5 i :.i 1 16 HO W TO StJCCEEb tN LIFR their fathers had really entered into it. There may not be many of those for whom these pages are chiefly written of this class ; but some- thing of the same tendency exists among all classes of the young. They all attain sooner to the rights of manhood, and the premature use of these rights becomes an abuse. To men- tion nothing else, the prevalence of smoking among the young is an illustration of what we mean. Even should it be admitted that this habit can be practised in moderation with im- punity, and as a legitimate source of pleasure by the full-grown man, it must be held to be altogether inappropriate to the young. The youthful frame can stand in no need of any stimulating or sedative influence it may impart. The overworked brain or the overtasked physi- cal system may receive no injury, or may even receive some benefit — we do not profess to give any opinion on the subject — from an indulgence which is absolutely pernicious to the fresh, healthy, and still developing constitution. And that smoking is an indulgence of this class can- not be doubted. Granting it to be a permissible enjoyment, it is not so to the young. So far as they are concerned, it involves in its very nature the idea of excess. Their physical constitution should contain within itself the abundant ele- ments of enjoyment. If healthy and unabused, it no doubt does so ; and the application of a nar- ^W!m:, lere lese me- all Dner turc nen- king Lt we this I im- asure to be The f any npart. hysi- even give gence fresh, And s can- lissible far as ature tution t ele- sed, it a nar- HOW TO ENJOY, 117 cotic like tobacco is nothing else than a violent interference with its free and natural action. The avoidance of all exjcess is a golden rule in enjoyment. It may be a hard, and in certain cases an impossible rule to the young. In the abundance of life there is a tendency to over- flow ; and when the young heart is big with excited emotion it seems vain to speak of mode- ration. Every one, probably, will be able to recall hours when, amid the competitive glad- ness of school or college companions the im- pulses of enjoyment seemed to burst all bounds, and ran into the most riotous excitement ; and in the reminiscences of such hours there may be the charm as of a long-lost pleasure never to be felt again ; but if the memory be fairly in- terrogated, it will be found that even then there was a drawback — some latent dissatisfaction and weariness, or something worse, that grew out of the very height or overplus of that rapturous enjoyment As a great humorist* has said — " E'en the bright extremes of joy Bring on conclusions of disgust** Assuredly the most durable and the best plea- sures are all tranquil pleasures. And it is just one of the lessons which change the sanguine anticipations of youth into the sober experience of manhood that the true essence of attainable enjoyment is not in bursts of excitement, but in • Thomas Hood. Illl^ ! '.i •I 11 l\ . : 11-8 HOW JO .SUCCEED W LlJb K the moderate flow of healthy and happy, be- cause well-ordered, emotion. * As we set out by saying, it is impossible to regard this or any other element of life apart from religion. To many no doubt it seems widely separated from it. The very name of re- creation calls up to them ideas with which they would think it an absurdity or even an impiety to associate religion. The latter is a solemnity — ^the former is a frivolity, or festivity — and each is to be kept in its proper place. To speak of religion having anything to do with the amuse- ments or enjoyments of the young would appear to such to be the wildest absurdity. Yet it is a true, and, from a right point of view only, the most sober, judgment, that the spirit of religion must pervade every aspect of life — ^that there is no part of our activity can be fully separated from it. We must be Christian in our enjoy- ments as in everything. The young man must carry with him into his recreations not merely feelings of honour, but the feelings of justice, purity, truth, and tenderness that become the , gospel. He must do this, if he be a Christian at all. At least, in so far as he does not do this, he does discredit to his Christian profession. He fails to realise and exemplify it in its full meaning. It is this upon which we must fall back here HOW TO ENJOY. 1H» and everywhere. It is the spirit ot the gospel to rejoice, and yet to do so with sobriety ; to rejoice where God fills the heart with gladness — where opportunity and companionship invite to mirth and cheerfulness ; and yet to be sober when we think how fleeting all joy is — how soon the clouds and darkness follow the glad sunshine — how many are dwelling in the "house of mourn- ing" — what a shadow of death and of judgment encompasses all human life. To be cheerful and yet to be sober-minded — to laugh when it is a time for laughter — to have no gloom in our heart, and yet to have no wantonness in it — but to be •* pitiful and courteous" towards others' sorrow, should God spare ourselves from it, — this is the right spirit, truly Christian — truly human, (the latter because it is the former.) It may seem sufficiently simple of attainment ; but its very simplicity makes its difficulty. There is nothing notable in it — only the harmony of a healthy, Christian soul. It is by no means easy of reach, but by God's help it may in some measure be the portion of all who will humbly learn His truth and follow Ris will. II. WHAT TO ENJOY. OUTH must have its recreations. En- joyment must mingle largely in the life of every healthy young man — enjoyment liberal yet temperate. The general proposition does not admit of rea- sonable dispute ; but when we descend to details, {ind consider the particular forms of enjoyment which the world ofters to young men, we find ourselves very soon surrounded with difficulties Recreation becomes a complex question, in which good is greatly mingled with evil ; and some of its most familiar forms have long been, and probably will long remain subjects of vehe- ment argument I WHAT TO ENJOY. r:?i Kspecially docs arfjument arise in reference to the very period of life which \vc are contemplat- ing. In younger years, or again in older years, the difiiculty is less urgent, or at least it solves itself more readily. The inexperience of mere boyhood protects it from the evil that may be se- ductive to the young man ; and again the expe- rience of mature years is so far a preservative from the same evil. The boy has not yet reached the age of action or of self-choice in the matter; the man of experience has already formed his practical philosophy of life, and taken the direction of his conduct into his own hands beyond the control of advice from any other. The difficulty lies in .he main before the young man who is forming his philosophy of life : how he shall act in reference to certain forms of worldly enjoyment — how far these are consistent with a Christian character — how far the element of temptation mingled up in them should deter him from participation in them — how far the element of good in them may claim the recognition of his free reason and in- dependent judgment. Before passing to the consideration of this difficulty, however, there are certain forms of recreation so obviously and undeniably legiti- mate as to claim from us a few words of recom- mendation. The active sports of boyhood may be, and as " II \ i 1 ?2 HOW TO SUCCEED IN L TFE, far as possible should be, carried into early manhood. Cricket, or foot-ball, or golf, or what- ever game carries the young man into the open air, braces his muscles, and strengthens his health, and procures the merry-hearted com- panionship of his fellows, should be indulged in without stint, so far as his opportunities will permit, and the proper claims of business or of study justify. The primary claims of both of these are of course everywhere pre- sumed by us. We have only in view those whc purs'je such games as recreations. Those who pursue them to the neglect or disadvantage of higher claims upon their time, may of course turn them, as they may turn all things, into occasions of evil. Our meaning simply is, that viewing such games in their proper character, as sources of enjoyment for the leisure hours of youth, they are of an absolutely innocent and beneficial character. They subserve in he highest degree the purposes of enjoyment by exercising pleasur- ably the physical system, stimulating the animal spirits, and calling forth the feelings of fair and honourable rivalry, of earnest and unconceding yet courteous competition. The healthy enjoyment of these sports might be the subject of extended description, but thip fvould lead us away from our task. Those who prize and enjoy them, do not need any such WHAT TO ENJOY. nn description, and others would not be much the better of it. It cannot be too strongly borne in mind that this enjoyment is to some extent a moral as well as a physical gain. Moral and physical health, especially in youth, are intimately connected; and whatever raises the animal spirits without artificially exciting them, and stimulates the nervous energy with- out wasting it, is preservative of virtue, as well as conducive to bodily strength. The happy abandonment of cricket or foot-ball, the more steady yet equally keen excitement of golf, leave their traces in the higher as well as in the lower nature; and, if well used, they are really instru- ments of education as well as amusement. There is another class of amusements to which young men may freely betake themselves as they have opportunity — shooting and fishing. Both are time-honoured, and both, if not free from temptation — as nothing is — are yet so sur- rounded with healthful associations as to claim almost unqualified approval. There are, no doubt, questions — and questions not very easy of answer — that may be raised in reference to both these modes of recreation. It seems strange, and in certain moods of our moral conscious- ness indefensible, that man should seek and find enjoyment in the destruction of innocent and happy life around him. It is strange a M fi ^ 124 ffOW TO SUCCBBD IN LIFE and puzzling that it should be so; and if think merely of the end of such sports, and try reflectively to reah'se them, we arc not aware of any satisfactory trains of argument by which I hey can be clearly defended. But the truth is, there are tiot a few things in life which con- science practically allows, and sense justifies; yet which s.re scarcely capable of reflective vindica- tion. They are not subjects of argument, and argument only becomes ridiculous and futile when applied therein. They answer to strong and healthy instincts in us — instincts given us by God, and which therefore justify their objects vvhen legitimately sought. But the objects looked at by themselves have little or nothing to commend them to the reason or moral judg- ment. The destruction of animal life in sport seems to be such an object. Viewed by itself it has nothing ^o commend it; it seems almost shocking to speak of sport in connexion with it ; yet instinct and sense not only justify such sport, but approve of it as among the healthiest recreations that we can pursue. Any man who would argue against either shooting or fishing because of the cruelty they seem to involve, is regarded as an amiable enthusiast to whom it is useless to make any reply. Supposing he has all the argument on his side from his point of view, sportsmen see the thing from an entirely different point of view, and while they do nql WHAT TO ENJOY. 13o care to dispute the argument, they go theii way quite unimpressed by it, and strong in the fceUng that their way is in the highest degree justifiable. It is not the destruction of animal life which they directly contemplate. On the contrary,, when this destruction is secured and made easy, as sometimes happens, it is rightly said that there is no sport. It is the healthful exercise, the ready skill, the risks, the adventure, the " chase," in short, rather than the " game " that they regard. The sportsman, as he sets out, thinks of the breezy morn, or the open day — the crisp and bracing air — the walk through the fields or by the stream — the excitement of the search — the happy adventures with which he will attain his object — the pleasure of success — the pleasure even should he fail. His mind dwells upon every pleasing accessory, and the idea of pain to the destroyed animals seldom or never occurs to him. It is a singular enough fact that angling, which to the reflective imagination can certainly vindicate itself as little as shooting, has come to be esteemed as a peculiarly gentle and innocent amusement. Anglers are all of a " gentle craft," and a quiet, pensive, peaceful, harmless, happy air — breathed from the spirit of old Izaak Wal- ton, and long before he lived to symbolise it — is supposed to rest upon their pursuit Nothing ^1 !. M Mi ill < H I 126 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. can shew more strikingly how completely it isth< accessories, and not the end, of this amusemeni that common sense and traditionary feeling con- template. It were vain to say that common sense and traditionary feeling are wrong. Be- yond doubt they are right on such a subject. The subject is one which belongs to their pro- vince, and not to the province of logic. And even if the logician should find himself driven to argue it from an opposite point of view, he would probably be found in his practice, and certainly in his ordinary moods of feeling, con- tradicting his own argument. fi In addition to such out-door amusements, there are various forms of in-door amusement which claim some notice. It is more difficult to find in-door amusements for young men, for the simple reason that healthy and happy exercise is the idea which is chiefly associated with, and chiefly legitimates recreation on their part. And the open air is the natural place for such exercise. Vet in-door amusements must also be found. Music is one of the chief of these amusements, and certainly one of the most innocent and ele- vating. Of all delights, to those who have the gift or taste for it, music is the most exquisite. To affix the term amusement to it is perhaps scarcely fair. It is always more than this when WHAT TO ENJOY, 127 iluly appreciated. Luther ranked it as a science next in order to theology. " Whoever despises music/' he said, " as is the case with all fanatics, with him I can never agree ; for music is a gift of God, and not a discovery of man. It keeps Satan at a distance ; and, by making a man happy, lio loses all anger, pride, and every other vice. After theology, I give music the second rank and highest honour ; and we see how David, together with all the saints, have expressed their thoughts in verse, in rhyme, and in song. Most of all, I approve these two recreations and amusements — namely, music, and chivalrous ex- ercises, with fencing, wrestling, &c. ; the first chasing away the cares of the heart and melan- choly thoughts, the other beneficial in exercis- ing and improving the limbs, and keeping the body in health." -" . So Luther, with that manly and healthy in- stinct which always characterises him. He loved music himself, and always found a solace in it ; and every sympathetic, and tender, and beauti- ful nature will do the same. It is a charm not only in itself, but a charm to keep us from idle and frivolous amusements. While stealing the senses by its soft witchery, or stirring them by its brilliant mystery, it awakens, at the same time, the most hidden fountains of intellectual feeling, so that under its spell, more than at any other time, we feel i:-\ n i! Ill 128 HO W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. •* Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that ininioital sea Which brought us hither ; — Can in a moment travel thither — And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." There is no other recreation, if this be the proper name for it at all, which is so purely intellectual. Other amusements, many games, may exercise the intellect, and even largely draw forth its powers of forethought, of decision and readi- ness ; but music appeals to the soul in those deeper springs which lie close to spiritual and moral feeling. It lifts it out of the present and visible into the future and invisible. Even in its gayer and lighter strains it often does this, as well as in its more solemn and sacred clvints. The simple lilt of a song which we have heard in youth, or which reminds us of home and country — some fragment of melody slight in meaning, yet exquisitely touching in sweet or pathetic wildness — will carry the soul into a higher region, and make a man feel kindred with the immortals. ** O joy ! that in our embers Is something that doth live ; That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive ! " A joy so precious as this, and which may min- ister to such high ends, is one which we are bound to cultivate in every manner, and for WHAT TO ENJOY, 120 which we are warranted in seeking the fullest indulgence. The concert, the oratorio, the opera, are all, from this point of view, to be commended. It appears impossible to make any absolute dis- tinction between these forms of musical enter- tainment, and to say that the concert and per- haps the oratorio are commendable, but not so the opera. Such distinctions have their root in the same confusion of ideas in which many cur- rent moral and religious commonplaces take their rise. The pieces of music performed at the concert are nothing else in great part but detached fragments from the great operatic masterpieces. And what is the opera but the attempt to realise in a more complete form the dramatic and lyric play of passion, in which all song and music have their origin > While the opera is thus defensible in its essential charac- ter, it is at the same time — on account of the high and expensive art which it always involves — free from the degrading accessories which too often surround the theatre. The fact of operatic performances occurring in a place called a theatre is not, we presume, a consideration which can affect any sensible mind. The oratorio stands somewhat by itself It is in its very profession sacred music ; and many who would shrink from all contact with the opera, are delighted to go to the oratorio, and to find at once their taste indulged, and 130 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. their conscience soothed, in listening to its so- lemn and majestic, or pensive and pathetic music. Others, again, have gone the length o< recognising a peculiar offence in the very re- ligious character of the oratorio. That such music should be performed by those who have no religious character — that it should be sought mainly as an amusement, under the same im- pulse that any other public entertainment is sought — are points that some clergymen have not scrupled to urge in condemnation of ora- torios. All that need be said in reply to such views is, that they are not more illogical than they are unfair, and therefore unchristian. The very same views might be urged against religious worship. This worship is, no doubt, sometimes conducted by those who have no true religious character; and there are those who join in it from no higher motive than to distract the time, and because they have nothing else to do. The truth is, that all such judgments, where we can have no means of ascertaining the real state of the case, are grossly uncharitable. They savour of a spirit the very opposite of His who said, " Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." We have nothing to do with such things. The music which thrills with its awful earnest- ness — its tone.^ of adoration or of deprecation — may proceed from a dead or cold, or from \ deeply-touched or pious heart. We cannot WHAT TO ENJOY, O tell ; no more than we can tell whether the elo- quent preacher of " righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," speaks from the fuhiess of a faithful, or the mere readiness of a fluent, tongue. It is our business to look to our own hearts, and see what good we get from such opportunities of good. Such music is truly, as Luther says, " a gift of God to us, and not a dis- covery of man." Let us improve the gift, and be thankful to the Giver. As to the in-door amusements of which the game of billiards may be taken as the type, and the other class of amusements that follow, we feel at once that we are by no means on such secure ground as we have been treading. And yet it is not because we have passed into a dif- ferent region of fact — because there is any- thing in such a game as billiards that is immoral, or in any sense illegitimate. On the contrary, it is impossible to conceive any game in itself qiore innocent. It admits of exquisite skill, calls forth subtle ingenuities of head and hand, and promotes free movement and exercise. Yet it is no less the case that we would not consider it a good but a bad sign of any young man that he spent his time in billiard-rooms. We do not even excuse the same devotion to billiards, or any such game, as we do to any of those out- door and more invigorating sports of which wo ■ f. f I I I I I I ■ 133 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. have spoken. We would infinitely rather see a young man fond of fishing, or shooting, or boat- ing, or golf, or cricket, or any such sport, than we would see him fond of billiards. And yet billiard-playing is certainly in itself quite as innocent as any of these sports. Another proof, if any were needed, that the common sense and judgment take in not merely the essential cha- racter of any game or amusement, but its whole accessories, and these often more prominently a. J determinately than anything else. A devo- tion to billiard-playing in a young man is rightly held to imply an idle and luxurious nature, and to expose to chances of evil companionship, which may prove of fatal consequence. We cannot say to any young man, Do not play billiards — it is wrong to do so ; because we have no warrant to make such a statement — no one has. To affirm that to be wrong, which is not in itself wrong, which may be practised with the most perfect innocence — with the most warrantable enjoy- ment—is a dogmatism of the worst kind, which can only breed that moral confusion in the minds of the young to which we have more than once adverted. And moral confusion is a direct parent of vice. When once the moral vision is clouded, and sees* only in a maze, there is no security for right principle or consistent conduct. We do not venture to say this therefore. But we venture to say to every young man, It is not ^yiiA'i lo JUisjok, luj )oy- lich , good for you to indulge much in such an amuse- sncnt. You can only do this at the expense of higher considerations. Many other amusements are better, more healthful in themselves, and more free from dangerous associations. The love of play of any kind in the shape of billiards or cards, or anything else, is a hazard- ous, and may prove before you are well aware of it, a fatal passion. Whenever it begins to develop, you have passed the bounds of amuse- ment ; and to indulge in any games but for amusement is at once an infatuation and temp- tation of the worst kind. It is only the idea of amusement that sanctions such games. Disso- ciated from this idea, they become instruments of evil passion, to be repudiated by every good man. If you use them at all then, never abuse them. And use other games rather. They are better in themselves ; they are safer in their effects. In reference tc the last class of amusements to which we pass — the theatre, dancing, and fes- tive parties among yourselves — all we can say is very much of the same character as we have now said. These things are not necessarily evil, and we cannot take it upon us to say that they are. Yet they often lead to evil ; and it is im- possible, in the case of the theatre especially, as it has always existed and is likely to continue i\ II- 184 HO [y TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. to exist among us, not to feci t'^at the young man who seeks his amusement there is courting dangers of the most seductive and fatal character. Why so ? Not certainly that there is anything vicious in the representation of human passion and action upon the stage. Not surely that the drama is essentially vicious in its tendency, or sheds from it an immoral influence. On the con- trary, the drama is in its idea noble and exalting — one of the most natural, and therefore most effective expressions of literary art. Who may not be made wiser and better by the study of Shakspeare's wonderful creations } In what hu- man compositions rather than in his plays would a young man seek for the stimulus of high thoughts, and the excitement of lofty and heroic or gentle and graceful virtues } The stage in its true conception is a school of morals as well as of manners, in which the things that are ex- cellent should commend themselves, and the things that are low and bad shew their own disgrace. There is no species of entertainment that can, according to its true idea, more com- pletely vindicate itself than the theatre. Luther felt this, and has dwelt upon it with his usual heartiness. " Plays," he says, " are to be allowed, because they arc written in beau- tiful poetry, and characters are portrayed and represented by which the people are instructed, and every m?.n is reminded and admonished of tVIIAT TO ENJOY. 135 his rank and office, what is becoming in a ser- vant or due to a master, and an old man, and the station each should assume in society ; nay, here is exhibited, as in a mirror, the splendour of dignities and offices, the responsibility of our duties, and how each one should conduct him- self in his station and general behaviour. At the same time, the cunning artifices and decep- tions of unprincipled villains are described and held up to view ; likewise the duty of parents to their children, how they should educate their young people, and persuade them to marry at a proper time ; and how the children should shew obedience to their parents. Circumstances are exhibited in plays the knowledge of which is generally useful — as for instance the interior government of a family, which can be learned only in or by representation of a married life. And Christians ought not to throw comedies aside, because there sometimes occur expressions not proper for every ear ; for even the Bible it- self might in this view be kept out of sight. Those objections, therefore, which are brought forward why Christians should be forbidden to read or perform plays, are feeble and ground- less." Clear and honest words, as all Luther's are. The argument is satisfactory and to the point Dramatic representation is, in its idea, a compe- tent minister of such high uses as he describes. U ' r I : i I lua now TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. ! il M "I Vet it remains no less true that the theatre is not, in its actual accessories, as it exists among us, a school of morals. Is it not too fre- quently the reverse ? Conceive the case of a young man, of good principles and unblem- ished character, carried by some of his compa- nions, for the first time, to the theatre. Would the good or the evil influences be uppermost in such a case } Would the associations of the place — the late hours, the after entertainment — not cast into the shade any happier efifects that might flow from what he heard or saw ? Would any Christian parent contemplate, without un- easiness, a play-going fondne«:s in his son } In point of fact, is such a fondness likely to lead to any good ? Do the young men who most ex- hibit it, develop into earnest, or excellent, or use- ful characters } These questions, we fear, are too easily answered in the negative. And, therefore, while we think with Luther, we would add a caution to his words. The performance of plays is not to be reprobated — those who go this length will be found to have a most inadequate and narrow idea both of life and literature, and to belong to the " fanatics " with whom the great Reformer " could never agree ; " but attendance upqn the theatre is to be practised with modera- tion and caution. "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient : all things are lawful for me, but all things edif)' not." If yVlJAT 10 ENJOY, UK anywhere this wise rule of St Paul's applies, it is here. Young men may go to the theatre — may lawfully and innocently do so;* but it is not expedient that they do so often ; it is not expedient that they go in groups of unguarded fellowship. The enjoyment is not in itself to be condemned ; but temptation lies everywhere folded in its accessoriei,. Temptation is to be shunned — the appearance of evil is to be avoided. The most excellent way of doing this is to go, when you do go to the theatre, with those whom you love and respect — \w\i\\ the members of your own family. In this manner all the accessory evils of the enjoyment are most completely disarmed, and all its highest good most effectually secured. Dancing is to be indulged with the same limi- tations. None but a fanatic of the most gloomy description could impute any harm to the act of dancing in itself. Here, also, the bright-hearted Reformer (and yet he was often sad-hearted, too) lays down the principle. " The inquiry is made," he says, "if dancing is to be reckoned a sin. Whether among the Jews dancing was the cus- tom, I do not indeed know ; but since among us * These remarks have been the subject of a good deal of criticism. We feel ourselves, aftci fi'H renection, unable to modify them. We cannot conden^.n the mere fact cf attendance at the theatre, in any circumsta-ices. And those who take up this iH)siliun can only do so consistently on different principles from those whiob underlie all our views on the subject of '* Kccication." ¥ 1 .IS no \V TO StTCCEED N LIFK. it is customary to invite {guests to dine, to eat, and be merry, and also to dance, I do not see how this practice can be rejected. The abuse, however, must be avoided. That wickedness and sin are often the ccnsequenccs, is not attri- butable to the act of dancing. If everything is done with decorum, you will be able to dance with your guests. Faith and love arc not ban- ished by dancing." No, indeed. And whatever natural amusement is consistent with the exer- cise of these virtues, is not to be banned by hard-hearted dogmatists. But abuse is to be carefully guarded against. Dancing too readily degenerates into dissipation — and innocent gaiety passes into frivolity — and the flutter of excited interest into the craving for artificial passion. All such extremes arc evil — bad in themselves, and hurtful in their consequences. In the same manner festive parties among yourselves, how light and genial and happy may they be ! What feast of reason and flow of soul I What flash of wit and cannonade of argument may they call forth ! What radiant sparks, the memory of which will never die out, but come back in the easy and humorous moments of an earnest and it may be a sad existence, and brighten up the past with the momentary corus- cations of a departed brilliancy 1 What deep, hearty friendship may illuminate and beautify them ! Yet we know that such gladsome mo- U\ WHAT TO KNJOY 139 inents are peculiarly akin to danger. Merrinien* may pass into wantonness, and legitimate indul gence into a riotous carouse. Moderation is the diflficulty of youth in everything. Yet when the bounds of moderation arc once passed, all the enjoyment is gone — recreation ceases. " Mirth and laughter, and the song, and the dance, and the feast, and the wine-cup, with all the jovial glee whic. circulates around the festive board, are only proper to the soul at those seasons when she is filled with extraordinary gladness, and should wait until those seasons arrive in order to be partaken of wholesomely and well ; but by artificial means to make an artificial excitement of the spirits is violently to change the law and order of our nature, and to force it to that to which it is not willingly inclined. Without such high calls and occasions, to make mirth and laughter is to belie nature, and misuse the ordi- nance of God. It is a false glare, which doth but shew the darkness and deepen the gloom. It is to wear out and dissipate the oil of gladness, so that, when gladness comcth, we have no\^ght of joy within our souls, and look upon it with baleful eyes. It is not a figure, but a truth, that those who make those artificial merriments night after night have no taste for natural mirth, and are gloomy and morose until the revels of the table or the lights of the saloon bring them to life again. Nature is worsted by art — artificial fire is stolen, 140 now TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. but not from heaven, to quicken the pulse of life, and the pulse of life runs on with fevered speed, and tho strength of man is prostrated in a few brief years, and old age comes over the heart when life should yet be in its prime. And not only is heaven made shipwreck of, but the world is made shipwreck of — not only the spiritual man quenched, but the animal man quenched, by such unseasonable and intemperate merrymakings."* In all your enjoyments, therefore, be moderate. The principle that leads and regulates you must be from within. The more the subject of recrea- tion is candidly and comprehensively looked at, the more it is studied in a spirit of sense and rea- son, the more difficult will it appear to lay down dwy external rules that shall make out its charac- ter and determine its indulgence. Everywhere the difficulty appears extreme, and all wise men will admit it to be so, when amusement is viewed merely from the outside. Hut look within, and set your heart right in the love of God and the faith of Christ, and difficulties will disappear Your recreation will fit in naturally to your life. You will throw the evil from you, however near you may sometimes come to it, and you will get the good wliich few things in the world are with- out. The inner life in you will assimilate to the Divine everywhere, and return its own blessed and consecrating influence to all your work and all your amusements, * Edwuid Irving. H i) :^l ' IMPORTANCE OF RELTGION. HE most important subject to a young man, or to any man, is religion. What is my position in the world ? Whence have I come, and whither am I going ? What is the meaning of life and of death ? What is above and before me ? These are questions from the burden of which no one escapes. The most idle, the most selfish, the most self-con- fident do not evade them. Those who care least for religion, in any ordin-^-y sense, are found in- venting their own solution of them. All experi- ence proves that men cannot shut out the thought of the Unseen and the Supreme, although they may bani.sh from their minds the faith of their 142 HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. childhood, and despise what they deem the superstition of their neighbours. The void thus created fills up with new materials of faith, often far less interesting and unspeakably less worthy than those which they superseded. Our age has been rife in examples of this ; and men have wondered — if, indeed, any aberration of human intellect can well excite wonder — at the spec- tacle of those who have professed that they could not conceive of any notion of a Supreme Being without emotions of ridicule, exhibiting a faith in the supernatural, in comparison with which the superstitions of a past age are pro- bable and dignified. So strangely does violated human nature take its revenges, and bring in at the door what has been unhappily expelled at the window. The thought of the supernatural abides with man, do what he will. It visits the most callous ; it interests the most sceptical. For a time — even for a long time — it may lie asleep in the breast, either amidst the sordid despairs, or the proud, rich, and young enjoyments of life ; but it wakens up in curious inquiry, or dreadful anxiety. In any case, it is a thought of which no man can be reasonably independent. In so far as he retains his reasonable being, and preserves the consciousness of moral susceptibilities and re- lations, in so far will this thought of a higher world — of a Life enclosing and influencing his X IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION. 143 present life — ^be a powerful and practical thought with him. It becomes clearly, therefore, a subject of urgent importance to every man how he thinks of a higher world. What is it to him .? What are its objects, — their relation to him, and his relation to them } Suppose the case of a young man entering upon life, with the sense of duty beginning to form in him, or at least working itself clear and firm in his mind, how directly must all his views of the near and the present be affected by his thought of the Supreme and the future } It may not be that he has any dis- tinct consciousness of moulding his views of the one by the other. But not the less surely will the "life that now is" to him be moulded by the character of the life that he believes to be above him and before him. The lower will take its colour from the higher — the " near " from the " heavenly horizon." There will be a light or a darkness shed around his present patli in pro- portion as his faith opens a steady or a hesitat- ing — a comprehensive or a partial — gaze into the future and unseen. It may seem, on a mere superficial view, that this is an overstatement. The young grow up and go into the world, and take their places there often with little feeling of another world, and how they stand in relation to it. Their characters are formed as it might seem by chanoei i i / 1 I i fX t w i 1 144 HO r TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. and the tastes and opinions of the accidental society into which they are thrown. And no doubt such influences are very potent. They are the envelopin'.^ atmosphere of character, silently feeding and rounding the outlines of its growth. But withal, its true springs are deeper — " Out of the heart are the issues of life." The soul within is the germ of the u folding man, no less than the seed is that of the plant, fashioned and fed as it may be by the outer air. And the essential form of character will be found in every case to depend upon the nature of the inner life from which it springs. Whether this be dull and torpid, or quick and powerful, will very soon shew itself in the outward fashion of the man. The mere surface of many lives may look equally fair, but there will be found to be a great difference, according as some hold to a higher life, and draw their most central and en- during qualities thence ; and as others are found to have no higher attachment — no living spring of Divine righteousness and strength. What is deepest in every man, and most influential, how- ever little at times it may seem so, is, after all, his relation to God and the Unseen. The genuine root of character is here, as trial soon proves. How a man believes concerning God and the higher world — how his soul is — will shew itself in his whole life. From this inner source^ its IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION. 145 essential and determining qualities will run. On this foundation its structure rests. The religious belief of young men, therefore, is a subject of the most vital moment for them- selves, and for all. Whatever tends to afifect it" is pregnant with incalculable consequences. To weaken or lose it, is to impair' the -very life of society. To deepen and exparnl it is to add strength to character and durability to virtue. The present must be held to be a time of trial, so far as the faith of the young and the faith of all are concerned. Questions touching the worth and the authority of Christianity are widely mooted and openly canvassed. There may be something to alarm — there is certainly much to excite serious thought in this prevail- ing bias of religious discussion. Of one thing we may be sure, that it is neither possible to avert this course of discussion, nor desirable to do so. It must have free course. The thought of many hearts must be spoken out — otherwise it will eat witiiin, and the last state will be worse than the first. It may be perilous to have the faith of our youth tried as by fire ; but it would be still more pei.ious to discountenance or stifle free inquiry. Christianity has nothing to fear from the freest discussion. Its own motto is, '* Prove all things — hold fast that which is good." It seems a very hopeless thing, now-a-days, : V4 116 now TO iSUCCA'Ii!D IN LIFE, to try to hold any minds by the mere bonds of authority. The intellectual air all anound is too astir for this. There is no system of mental seclusion can well shut out the young from opinions the most opposite to those to which they have been accustomed. The old safeguards, which were wont to enclose the re- ligious life as wkh a sacred charm, n*^ longer do so. Even those who rest within the shade of authority, do so, in many cases, from choice rathe.' than from habit. They know not what else to do. They have gone in quest of truth, and have not found it ; and so they have been glad to throw themselves into arms which pro- fess an infallible shelter, and seek repose there. This is not remedy for doubt, but despair of reason. And no good can come in this way. The young can only be led in the way of trrth, not by stifling, but by enlightening and strengthening all reasonable impulses within them. Religion must approve itself to them as thoroughly reasonable — in a right sense — as well as authoritative. It must be the highest truth in the light of judgment, and history, and conssience. ' •''! f II. OBJECT OF RELIGION. rHE fundamental point in religious in- quiry must be the character of the Supreme Existence. That there is a Supreme Existence or Power operat- ing in the world can scarcely be said to be denied by any. The Pantheist does not deny the reality of such a Power. The Positivist does not dispute it. Both fall back upon something higher, some- thing general, in which lower and particular ex- istences take their rise. The Atheist or the abso- lute sceptic of existence superior to his own is not to be found, or, at least, need not be argued with ; for it is not possible to find any common ground of argument with him. and all contro- ■i '1 I] !' 148 no W TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. vcrsy must suppose some common ground from which to start. The pure atheistic position is so utterly irrational as to be beyond the pale of discussion. Everywhere in the range of mo- dern speculation and modern science, it is con- ceded, or, rather, it may be said to be implied as a rational datum, without which neithei' phi- losophy nor science would be intelligible, that there is ;v universal principle pervading exist- ence, and in some sense controlling it. What ffinciple? and in what sense superior and controlling ? It is here that all the contro- v^crsy lies, and has long lain ; and in our time especially, the inquirer is met here at once with seductive theories, which, while they' serve to exercise his rational instinct, and seem to fall in with the advancing results of scientific in- vestigation, are in their very nature destitute of all religious and moral value. The Pantheist tells him that the universal principle is nothing else than the spirit of na- ture, or the collective life, animating all its parts, and ever taking new shapes of order and beauty in its endless mutations. The Positivist speaks to him of the laws of nature, or the great scheme in wfiich these laws unite, regulating and go- verning all things. By both the universal prin- ciple is held to be a principle within nature. Whether it be regarded as a Pantheistic spirit- life, or a material law or force — the conclusion OBJECT OF RELiaWN. 140 ' IS the same, that it is only nature itself in some modification or another which is the ultimate spring of existence, and the great arranger of it. There is no room left in either view for an Existence transcending nature, and acting inde- pendently of it. It may seem that this is a very old delusion ; and so it is. There is no creed of human origin older than that which deifies jature. There is no speculation more ancient than Pantheism, Yet there is none also younger — none more powerful over many minds at the present day. Is nature a self-subsistent, ever-unfolding pro- cess, containing all its energies within itself.? and are life and intelligence mere develop- ments from its fertile bosom } Or is mind the primary directing power of which nature is but the expression and symbol } Is there a life higher than any mere nature-life — a rational and moral Will, transcending and guiding all the processes of nature, — in nothing governed by, in everything governing them } This is the issue, more pertinently and urgently than ever, in the present crisis of speculative and religious inquiry. '):) I if How deeply this question goes into the whole subject of religion and morality must be obvious to any reflection. If once the doubt insinuates itself, and begins to hold the mind as to whether B J B I l'« 160 now TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. there is a higher Will than our own instructing and guiding us, to which wo arc responsible, and whose law should be our rule, it is plain that the ve^y spring of divine obedience must be slackened, if not destroyed. Men cannot habitually hold themselves free from a sense of duty and yet be dutiful — cannot deliberately cherish views at variance with all feeling of re- verence for a higher Power and yet be pious. When the mind comes to dwell familiarly on the idea of nature rather than of God, on that of development rather than of responsibility, on that of harmony rather than of authority, there gradually follows a marked change in the point of view from which life, and all its relations and interests, are regarded. There springs up an insensible and subtle selfishness, all the more powerful that it proceeds not from the grosser impulses, but from a diffused reflective feeling that nothing as it were can be helped, that " the great soul of the world is j ust ; " and that every man accordingly is to take the good pro- vided for him, and make the most of it for his own happiness, unmindful of the happiness or the misery of others. There is plenty of this selfishness, no doubt, in the world under every variety of opinion, plenty of it, alas ! in the very heart of the Christian Church ; but a system of thought which con- templates the world as its own end, and life, at OBJECT OF RELIGION, 151 the very best, as a mere process of culture, which, by rcjcctinf:^ a higher Will, deliberately rejects a moral ideal, tends directly to enc(nira<;e and educate such a comprehensive spirit of self-in- dulgence as the only guide of conduct. " Our appetites, being as much a portion of ourselves as any other quality we possess, ought to be indulged, otherwise the whole individual is not developed." This becomes the obvious canon of a philosophy which looks no higher than nature, [t consecrates passion, and hallows the pleasures )f the world as sources of experience and cul- ture. Such views may easily prove seductive to young minds. There is a novelty and appnrent grandeur and comprehensiveness about them that steal the imagination as well as minister to the senses. Especially is this apt to prove the case where the fair claims of nature may have been made to yield to the arbitrary exercise of religious authority. When the bow has been bent too far in one direction, it will recoil in the other. Religion is sometimes enforced to the neglect and even the defiance of nature. Nature takes its revenge when it wakens up, and finds itself strong in the consciousness of neglected rights. Authority sometimes holds the reins upon conscience too tightly and pretentiously. And conscience takes its play when it i? able to look its master in the face and finds how ill sup- .1! I II }i I »52 now TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. ported arc its assertions, and liow imaginary many of its terrors. ^ /ifhe question before us is one of fair argu- ment and deduction, from the facts of nature and the characteristics of human life and his- tory. If the theory which regards nature in some form or another as the Highest, fits into the facts of the world, and adequately accounts for them — if it be satisfactory to the demands of reason and conscience, and furnish an ade- quate solution of the great realities of history — then it would certainly make out a strong case. But if it break down in every one of these par- ticulars — if it fail to meet the demands of reason, or conscience, or history — then it has no pretence on which to claim our assent. It is convicted of falsehood, and sent away. The special difficulty of the question consists in fairly grappling with our adversary. How are we to meet him } And what weapons of controversy will he accept } The two sides koop pitched against one another, like opposite camps of thought, without directly meeting. They do not come forth into some chosen field and fight out their differences. The spiritualist appeals to internal experience — to the testimony of " con- sciousness," as it is called ; but the Positivist re- jects this appeal, and calls for statistics as the only trustworthy ground regarding human nature i y OTIJECT OF RELWJQN. \\r The one says, " I feci and know in my inmo