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Page 47
This subject has brought me back to the point from which I began,--the
_practical_ utility of a cultivated intellect, and the additional power
and usefulness it confers,--raising its possessor above all the mean and
petty cares of daily life, and enabling her to impart ennobling
influences to its most trifling details.
The power of thought, which I have so earnestly recommended you to
cultivate, is even still more practical, and still more useful, when
considered relatively to the most important business of life--that of
religion. Prayer and meditation, and that communion with the unseen
world which imparts a foretaste of its happiness and glory, are enjoyed
and profited by in proportion to the power of controlling the thoughts
and of exercising the mind. Having a firm trust, that to you every other
object is considered subordinate to that of advancement in the spiritual
life, it must be a very important consideration whether, and how far,
the self-education you may bestow on yourself will help you towards its
attainment. In this point of view there can be no doubt that the mental
cultivation recommended in this letter has a much more advantageous
influence upon your religious life than any other manner of spending
your time. Besides the many collateral tendencies of such pursuits to
favour that growth in grace which I trust will ever remain the principal
object of your desires, experience will soon show you that every
improvement in the reflective powers, every additional degree of control
over the movements of the mind, may find an immediate exercise in the
duties of religion.
The wandering thoughts which are habitually excluded from your hours of
study will not be likely to intrude frequently or successfully during
your hours of devotion; the habit of concentrating all the powers of
your mind on one particular subject, and then developing all its
features and details, will require no additional effort for the pious
heart to direct it into the lofty employments of meditation on eternal
things and communion with our God and Saviour: at the same time, the
employments of prayer and meditation will in their turn react upon your
merely secular studies, and facilitate your progress in them by giving
you habits of singleness of mind and steadiness of mental purpose.
FOOTNOTES:
[71] Carlyle.
[72] Matt. xxv. 23.
[73] Dan. xii. 3.
[74] "The vessel whose rupture occasioned the paralysis was so minute
and so slightly affected by the circulation, that it could have been
ruptured only by the over-action of the mind"--_Bishop Jebb's Life_.
[75] "This is nature's law; she will never see her children wronged. If
the mind which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample
upon its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury
but will rise and smile its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch been
dethroned."--_Longfellow_.
[76] It is the theory of Locke, that the angels have all their knowledge
spread out before them, as in a map,--all to be seen together at one
glance.
LETTER IX.
THE CULTIVATION OF THE MIND
(_Continued_)
In continuation of my last letter, I shall proceed at once to the minor
details of study, and suggest for your adoption such practices as others
by experience have found conducive to improvement. Not that one person
can lay down any rules for another that might in every particular be
safely followed: we must, each for ourselves, experimentalize long and
variously upon our own mind, before we can understand the mode of
treatment best suited to it; and we may, perhaps, in the progress of
such experiments, derive as much benefit from our mistakes themselves as
if the object of our experiments had been at once attained. It is not,
however, from wilful mistakes, or from deliberate ignorance, that we
ever derive profit. Instead, therefore, of striking out entirely new
plans for yourself, in which time and patience and even hope may be
exhausted, I should advise you to listen for direction to the
suggestions of those who by more than mere profession have frequented
the road upon which you are anxious to make a rapid progress. In books
you may find much that is useful; from the conversation of those who
have been self-educated you may receive still greater assistance,--as
the advice thus personally addressed must of course be more
discriminating and special. For this latter reason, in all that I am now
about to write, I keep in view the peculiar character and formation of
your mind. I do not address the world in general, who would profit
little by the course of education here recommended: I only write to my
Unknown Friend.
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