"It is well known to you that you are here trained in writing Greek and Latin, not with a view to your gaining your livelihood by writing in the classical languages, or for the sake of the amount or quality of the Greek and Latin exercises that you may produce in the course of education; but because habitual practice in such compositions is found to be a very effective instrument of intellectual discipline and training; because it creates and confirms habits of industry and attention; and educes and strengthens the faculties of memory, imagination, invention, reasoning, and judgment: and serves to produce correctness, variety, and elegance of style and expression, qualities and attainments which are all of great practical value, as well as conducive to great gratification, and subservient, in due measure, to honour and dignity in all the liberal professions and important stations and employments of active life. You hardly need to be reminded, that in all the liberal arts proficiency is attended by a careful study of the best models; and what the Parthenon and Pantheon are to the sculptor and architect of modern times, that the best literary works of antiquity are to the philosopher, the historian, the orator, and the poet. These observations may supply an answer, if it should be asked, why so much time is devoted to the study of the classical languages as is asuniversally the case in the grammar schools of England. And, to say a few more words, once for all, on this important subject. Why, it perhaps may be inquired, is so much stress laid on these languages? why not give a large share of it to the acquisition of modern languages, the uses of which are evident, whereas, it may be demanded who in after life will be called upon to speak Greek? how few to write, or even to read it? To this question is replied, that the accurate knowledge of the Greek language neither is, nor ought to be, limited to a few. We maintain, on the contrary, that it would be greatly to be deplored, as a national loss and dishonour, if the study of the original words of the inspired text of the most precious volume of the world, the New Testament, were restricted to a few; and especially if it were ever to be renounced or forfeited by the English gentleman, as if it were not the fittest companion of his hours of meditation, the best guide, the sweetest solace, the noblest and sublimest delectation of his life. We should think that he had sustained a great injury, and had been deprived of a high priviledge, if his education were not to be any longer of such a kind as to afford him access to those religious advantages which arise from a correct knowledge of the two classical languages, and which alone, in themselves, are sufficient to prove the permanent importance of these two languages in the education of a Christian gentleman." The author then descends, as he calls it, and takes up a lower ground of defence certainly, yet one not by any means of small importance. "The two classical languages, valuable in themselves and for what they contain, like the two precious metals gold and silver, have also, like these two metals, diffused themselves, with various admixtures, into the commerce of all the nations of Europe; they have flowed into the language and literature of a great part of the civilized world; and thus they form an essential part of that intellectual currency which negotiates the exchange of one age and country with another; and we cannot understand accurately and fully the history, character, and language of any of the greatest nations of the earth without a knowledge of them." After some judicious observations on the advantages to be derived from writing in Greek and Latin, an exercise promoting at once accuracy and copiousness of diction Dr. Wordsworth proceeds to urge the necessity of reading a second time* what has once been read in the several branches of literature. * A book that does not solicit the reader to a second, or rather to a frequent, perusal is read to little profit. We believe that we have read the Paradise Lost at least a hundred times, or, in other words, we have been reading it all our life long. And yet in the last perusal we noticed many things that had previously escaped us; and nearly so we may say of Pope, and had we the power we would do as Sir W. Jones is said to have done, read the whole of Cicero once every year. We think Dr. Arnold speaks of his reading Livy for the fiftieth time.—Rev. "I will not (he says) dilate now on the great utility of re-perusal; suffice it to say, that the benefits of the first reading of a good author are never so deeply felt as after the second. It is not the super"ficial tillage of a large and unwieldy tract of land, but it is the deep and reiterated ploughing of the manageable estate which produces the rich harvest. With intellectual latifundia you have nothing to do. 'Laudato ingentia rura, Exiguum colito.' Thus, for instance, having a Latin essay to compose, sit not down to write, but to read: read a second, read a third time, those portions of the works of Cicero which you have already read; make your selves thoroughly familiar with them, let them be your grammar, your dictionary, your vocabulary: so, for the composition of your prize exercises in Latin verse, be not in too great haste to produce verses of your own, but carefully study and analyse again and again those of Virgil and of Horace. Read again what you have formerly read of Plato and Thucydides, and of the Athenian dramatists, before you commence your compositions in Greek prose and verse; be assured, it is only by having read again and again what was worth writing, that you can hope to write what will ever be worth reading," &c. The sixth chapter treats of the Relations of School Discipline to Church Discipline, and of the great importance of the habits formed in the days of youth, Dum faciles animi juvenum, dum mobilis ætas. The "The grammar schools of England," he says, "are the nurseries of the Church, the plantaria et seminaria ecclesiæ: this is their true character. The spiritual ordinary, that is the Bishop in whose diocese they are, possesses and has always possessed jurisdiction over them. licence to teach is derived from him. books used are subject to his control. This may be shown from abundant proof and authority,* not necessary to be speci fied more minutely here, and it has been judicially declared that English grammar The schools are of ecclesiastical cognizance,' and the Bishops and clergy in convocation assembled have from time to time exercised jurisdiction over them, by prescribing what course of literary and religious instruction should be pursued in them; and some of the latest words of a large portion of that synod were those of protestation and remonstrance against the evil effects of the neglect of such control; and the statutes of the realm, as well as the canons of the church, are very explicit on these several points." Passing from these particulars to general observations on the advantages of such systems of education as are now established among us, on the utility of the studies thus pursued to our future welfare, particularly as connected with religion, and on the necessity of them as supplying the place of those supernatural powers that have been withdrawn, * The author refers to Bishop Gibson's Codex, pp. 1099, 1101, 1571; to Archbishop Sheldon's Orders in 1665; to Cardwell's Documentary Annals, ii. 274; to Archbishop Tenison's Letter to the Bishops of his Province, 1695, "Take all possible care that there be good schoolmasters in the several public schools within your diocese, not licensing any but," &c. Cardwell's Doc. An. ii. 337. + The Lower House in 1702. Cardwell's Synodalia, pp. 712, 718. "It is the operation of this great principle recognising external authority as a control over individual opinion," which has efficaciously enabled the university of Oxford to exercise the students in the very centre of scepticism, in systems founded wholly on rationalism, and, therefore, full of poison, without risking any infection. She has taught them to reason and prove, without making reason and proof essential conditions of belief. She has inspired them with reverence for heathens, without forgetting themselves to be Christians. She has put into their hands the weapons which have been so often turned against the truth, without tempting their employment against herself. And the humility, sobriety, and thoughtfulness which her course of study tends to stamp upon their characters, both in religion and in social life, is the best answer to the problem of Tertullian which can be solved in no other way-Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? Quid academiæ et ecclesiæ ? quid Hereticis et Christianis ? Nostra institutio de Porticu Salomonis est, qui et ipse tradiderat dominum in simplicitate cordis esse quærendum. Viderint, qui Stoicum et Platonicum et Dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt. Tertull. de Præscript." See Sewell on Plato, p. 13.-Rɛv, "Let us pass on to observe that if human learning be useful for the promotion of religion, we have no reason to believe that this end will ordinarily be attained by other means, where these can be had, and we have on the contrary abundant reason to believe that it will not. We have no grounds for supposing that God will work a miracle to encourage our indolence. On the contrary, we see that God suspends his miracles, while they are in progress, at that very point where the ends which they have hitherto answered become attainable by human diligence. Thus the pillar of cloud disappeared from the sight of the Israelites on the banks of the river Jordan, and the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the corn of Canaan; thus the star failed to direct the magi when they could learn their way to the inn from men; thus our Lord raised to life the daughter of Jairus, but He ordered that something should be given her to eat; thus He called Lazarus from the grave, but He commanded others to loose him and let him go. The question then is whether human learning be serviceable to religion? To which inquiry it may, perhaps, be replied by those who doubt the fact, that to answer this question in the affirmative would be to reject the argument which has been deduced in favour of Christianity from the illiterate character of its first preachers. Is it not inconsistent, they would allege, to draw an inference in favour of the Gospel from the simplicity of one apostle or teacher, and to say that Christianity was promoted by the learning of another? St. Matthew you allow was not versed in the wisdom of this world; nay, you assent, and justly too, that this absence of learning was no impediment to the cause of the Gospel; that it was an advantage to it; and will you now change your language, and affirm that the Christian cause was promoted by the pure diction of St Luke or by the erudition of St. Paul? Are these things consistent with one another?" Let us attend to the following distinction. "No ignorant man was ever chosen a minister of Christ, simply because of his ignorance; nor an obscure man selected solely because of his obscurity; nor a poor man only because of his poverty. St. Matthew was not called to be an apostle because he was a publican, but because, being a publican, he was known by Christ to possess such disinterestedness, such contempt of wealth, and, even in his publican's office, and therefore more remarkable, such faith, obedience, humility, and charity as would qualify him, through the co-operation of God's preventing, restraining, quickening, and guiding grace, to be an appropriate object of divine mercy, an instrument of God's almighty power, and an evidence to the world that by means which men despise God is able to overcome that which they most glory in, and as a proof that a victory so gained is due not to man but to God. Let, therefore, no one presume that because the apostles were unlearned men, therefore his own ignorance will commend him to God. him not suppose this until he has also the spiritual graces of an apostle, and then he will surely know that all presumption is hateful to God. Let not, indeed, the wise man glory in his wisdom, still less let the fool glory in his folly. God, it is true, has no need of man's learning, but still less has he need of man's ignorance, and further, though God has no need of human science, yet man has need of it; and, while man's ignorance of those things which he can and ought to learn is dis. Let pleasing to God, as a base and ungrateful neglect of the talents committed by God himself to his trust, so is it also highly pernicious to man. There cannot be a stronger proof of this than that afforded by the case of the apostles themselves. They were illiterate men it is true, but observe this, their defect of human learning was compensated by supernatural gifts of spiritual wisdom, the very bestowal of which proved the defect. For God would not have wrought a miracle to give what was unnecessary. Moses did not bring water from the rock except in the desert; Christ did not feed the five thou sand in the streets of Capernaum, but on a desolate mountain in the evening. Nothing then can more clearly prove the use of human learning in the promotion of religion and piety than the miracle worked by God for the supply of its substitutes to the first preachers of Chistianity in the gift of tongues, and in the spirit of interpretation. Again, be it observed, that this supply of supernatural means to them did not diminish, but rather increased, their obligation to use all the human aids which were within their reach. The miracle was wrought, not to tempt them to indolence, but to excite them to exertion. Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The sons of the prophets, under the old dispensation, were brought up in colleges and in schools. Daniel studied the writings of Jeremiah, and so the apostle who was endued above measure with all divine gifts and graces, and was caught up into the third heaven, not only enjoined his son Timothy to give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, to meditation, and to continue in these things (ev ToúTois eivai), but he has intimated to him, and through him to all succeeding ages of the world, what his own practice was in this respect, even at the close of his long career, when he might seem to have reached the highest degree of spiritual perfection attainable by man. St. Paul has not only shown what his own studies* had been, by quoting Epimenides, Aratus, and Menander, but he was not ashamed to give Timothy the commission in the text-The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee, and the books; but especially the parchments.' If then, as we see, the great inspired apostle of the Gentiles wrote this at the very close of his life, who will venture to neglect any human means that may concede to his own improvement in Divine wisdom? much more who will dare to look on his own ignorance or indolence with complacency, or presume that it will be a recommendation to him in the sight of God?" From the first promulgation by the unlearned, and its subsequent recep. tion by the learned from the unlearned, arises a double argument, the author says, in behalf of the truth of Christianity. It was preached by the ignorant, yet did not shun the scrutiny of the wise. It converted its enemies into allies. The elephants of Carthage are now used against herself. The foolishness of the Gospel having overthrown the wisdom of the world, used it as its own advocate against the world. * Tarso Cilix erat apostolus. Tantum autum studium rerum philosophicarum et disciplinarum quas energeticas decunt Tarsenses incessit (Strabone teste) ut superaverint Athenas, Alexandriam, et si quis alius nominari potest locus, ubi philosophorum et artium ad humanitatem pertinentium, scholæ haberentur. Hunc quasi agmine facto insecuti fuerunt veteres Christianæ ecclesiæ doctores, &c. Alberti Oratio de Theologiæ et Critices Canubio. See Blackwall's Sac. Classics, ii. p. 54.-REV. The parchment might, as Mr. Wordsworth observes, serve as common places into which St. Paul had transcribed extracts from various authors, or observations of his own ;-Theophyl. ad locum ἄι μεμβραναι ἴσως αὗται ὦ φελιμώτερά τινα περιεχον. See Blackwall's Sacred Classics, i. 317, and Bp. Bull's Serm. 2 Tim. iv. 13.-REV. We have never been able to understand the reason of both the Romans and their enemies, the Epirotes and Carthagenians, placing so high a value on elephants as an arm of war, seeing that we had once the curiosity to number up the battles in which they were used by or against the Romans, and we found in by far the greater number of instances they proved either useless or even injurious to their own party. The ready and effective way of destroying them also, such as is now used in India, was early discovered and practised. What an expense and encumbrance too to an army in its Alpine marches; nor do we recollect that they ever decided the fate of a battle, except perhaps in the first engagement of Pyrrhus; but we have never seen nor been able to obtain a curious and learned treatise on the subject, by Schlegel, in his Indische Bibliothek. i. 173, fol. On the subject of Hannibal's passage over the Alps, we find that the learned Dr. Arnold makes no mention at all of the famous story of the dissolution of the calcareous rocks by vinegar, we presume, as either inexplicable or not worthy of notice. We have always considered that it arose from the later historians, who copied the facts from the older annalists, whether in prose or verse, mistaking a metaphorical expression for a plain one. The rocky obstacles were removed by the labours of the army, who worked indefatigably on this arduous and destructive march. The drink of the soldiers was vinegar and water; and, increase of labour being rewarded by additional rations of provisions and drink, it was said in the homely and plain style of the old annalists, that vinegar dissolved the rock, as we should say in our days the same of brandy or rum. "Vina dabant animos."-REV. Apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New Testament; so again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the Church were excellently read in all the learning of the heathen.' So it was that in the next ages of Christianity victories were won. Justin Martyr, the former Platonist, refuted the philosophers of the Academy. Tertullian, one of the most learned and eloquent of heathens, was converted to Christ, and devoted his learning and eloquence to plead at Rome for the religion of Jesus. St. Cyprian, once the most distinguished advocate in the forum of Carthage, confounded the African orators of Paganism from the Christian pulpit. In St. Chrysostom, the school of Libanius in which he was educated became tributary to the Church of Christ. St. Augustin, once the teacher of rhetoric at Milan, and the most subtle of Manichæans, overthrew the sophist and the Manichee. In these and other instances, not merely did Christianity gain a victory over her adversaries, by convincing the wisest and most learned among them; but she displayed it to the world, by leading them in a glorious and After some other observations the "Let me exhort you then diligently to consider that you would have abundant motives, reasons, and encouragements for the careful and accurate study of the Greek and Latin languages in which you are engaged here, and ample cause for gratitude to God that you have the means of acquiring them, and you would have sufficient arguments to convince you of your bounden duty to avail yourselves, while you may, of these opportunities, if all other considerations were put out of the question, and if all the arguments that could be employed on this subject were reduced to one alone, namely, that in one of these two languages, the Greek and Latin, are preserved the most authentic and ancient expositions, (those of St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustin, Theodoret, and Theophylact,) of the sacred text of the New Testament; that in these tongues are comprised the most ancient and important materials for its elucidation, whether they be creeds, canons of councils, ancient liturgies, or the writings of the Catholic fathers and ecclesiastical his. blessed triumph under her liberty-giving yoke; and she extended her conquests, by using their wisdom and learning in her own behalf." "Let then (says the author in another place,) their secular studies be imbued with a religious spirit, and be followed with a single eye to God's glory and service; let the poets, philosophers, and historians of antiquity be employed to inform their judgment, to strengthen their understandings, to elevate their imaginations, to dignify their eloquence, and to enlarge their wisdom and experience, and let the faculties thus schooled and developed be consecrated to Him from whence they came. Let these things, I say, be recognised and practised in the schools of England, and we cannot doubt that under God's providence, when the national youth, thus trained up and exercised, has grown up into the national manhood, then the country will enjoy those blessings, temporal and spiritual, of peace, contentment, and prosperity, which God has promised to those who believe and obey him, and who dwell together in unity," &c. author says, torians, or whether they be those of profane authors, and even adversaries to the truth; and that, as without a sound grammatical knowledge of these two languages you cannot comprehend the inspired original, so none of all your intellectual pleasures will be equal to that with which you will perceive that the more minute your examination, the more accurate your scrutiny, of that original, and the more copious the stores of learning you bring to its study, the more strong your faith has become, that the Gospel of Christ "is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." Your intellectual pursuits will thus be invested with surpassing beauty, and productive of unspeakable joy, while they lead you on from things earthly to Divine. Thus your ordinary studies here will in their pursuit, and much more in their end, be holy, happy, and heavenly; they will be "like the ports of the gates of the daughter of Sion," which lead from the regions of earth to the city of the living God." The disproportion between the power of the instruments, it is observed, and the work which was to be done, and the successful execution of the work by means of such instruments as were chosen, are irrefragable proofs that the Gospel of Christ was no human device. "If the Gospel had been of human and not of Divine origin, its founder would not have commenced with calling to him the poor and ignorant, but the noble, the powerful, and the wise. Thus paganism propagated itself; thus, in later days, |