to difference, not improvement,-he remains inactive, and concedes to the old the privilege it derives from ancient possession.

In this way does the Idea possess and pervade him without intermission or reserve, and there remains nothing either of his person or his life that does not burn a perpetual offering before its altar. And thus is he the most direct manifestation of God in the world.

That there is a God, is made evident by a very little serious reflection upon the outward world. We must end at last by resting all existence which demands an extrinsic foundation, upon a Being the fountain of whose life is within Himself; by allying the fugitive phenomena which colour the stream of time with everchanging hues, to an eternal and unchanging essence. But in the life of Divine Men the Godhead is manifest in the flesh, reveals itself to immediate vision, and is perceptible even to outward sense. In their life the unchangeableness of God manifests itself in the firmness and intrepidity of human will which no power can force from its destined path. In it the essential light of the Divinity manifests itself in human comprehension of all finite things in the One which endures for In it the energy of God reveals itself, not in directly surrounding the Human Race with happiness - which is not its object-but in ordering, elevating, and ennobling it. A Godlike life is the most decisive proof which man can give of the being of a God.

ever.

It is the business of all mankind to see that the conviction of the Divine Existence, without which the very essence of their own being dwindles into nothing, shall never perish and disappear from among them;

-above all, it is the business of the Rulers, as the highest disposers of human affairs. It is not their part to bring forward the theoretical proof from human reason, or to regulate the mode in which this proof shall be adduced by the second class of Scholars; on the contrary, the practical proof, in their own lives, and that in the highest degree, devolves peculiarly upon them. If firm and intrepid will,-if clear and all-comprehensive vision, if a spirit of order and nobility speak to us in their conduct, then in their works do we see God face to face, and need no other proof:-GOD IS, we will say,-for they are, and He in them.

LECTURE IX.

OF THE SCHOLAR AS TEACHER.

BESIDES those possessors of the Idea, whose business it is, by guiding and ordering the affairs of men, to introduce the Idea immediately into life, there is yet another class those, namely, who are peculiarly and by preeminence called Scholars, who manifest the Idea directly in spiritual conceptions, and whose calling it is to maintain among men the conviction that there is, in truth, a Divine Idea accessible to human thought, to raise this Idea unceasingly to greater clearness and precision, and thus to transmit it from generation to generation fresh and radiant in ever-renewed youth.

This latter Vocation again divides itself into two very different callings, according to the primary object contemplated by them, and the mode of its attainment. Either the minds of men are to be trained and cultivated to a capacity for receiving the Idea; or the Idea itself is to be produced in a definite form for those who are already prepared for its reception. The first calling has particular men for its primary and immediate objects;-in it the only use which is made of the Idea is as a means of training and cultivating these men who are its primary objects, so that they may become capable of comprehending the Idea by their

own independent effort. It follows that, in this calling, regard must be paid solely to the men who are to be cultivated, the degree of their cultivation, and their capacity of being cultivated; and that an influence is only valuable here, in so far as it may be efficiently applied to those individuals upon whom it is directed. The second has for its object the Idea itself, and the fashioning of the Idea into distinct conceptions, and has no reference whatever to any subjective disposition or capacity of men; its business is prosecuted with no view to any but those who are capable of comprehending the Idea in the form thus given to it; the work itself settles and determines who shall receive it, and it is only addressed to those who can comprehend it. The first object will be best and most fitly attained by the verbal discourses of the Teacher; the second by literary writings.

Both of these callings belong to the vocation of the Scholar in its proper and highest sense, and not to the subordinate Scholar-occupations, which only devolve upon a man because he has not attained the proper end of his studies. He who prosecutes his studies conscientiously, and so acquires a conviction of the importance of the vocation of the Scholar, but yet does not feel within himself a clear consciousness of the capacity to fulfil it, shows that he recognises its sacred character, by not undertaking it ;-he who does undertake it, manifests the same conviction by exercising it worthily. In the next lecture we shall speak of the true Author; to-day we shall discourse of the upright Teacher of future Scholars.

The Teachers and Educators of those who devote themselves to the occupation of the Scholar may be

divided into two classes, and that on good grounds; namely, they are Teachers either in the lower Schools of learning, or in the higher or Universities. Not without deliberation do I class the Teachers in the lower Schools among true and not subaltern Scholars, and therefore demand of them that they attain possession of the Idea, and be penetrated by it,-if not with perfect light, yet with living warmth. He who is destined to study will, even while a boy, surround himself invisibly with the Idea and with its sanctity, and bathe his whole being in its influence. Nothing from which any ideal result may one day unfold itself, will be pursued by him as a piece of vulgar handicraft, and used as a means to the attainment of a partial object. Happily the objects which are peculiar to these Schools are of such a nature as to elevate him who pursues them conscientiously, and through him those who are committed to his care, above vulgar modes of thought; -did but the outward circumstances of the Teacher answer to his dignity, and his independence and station in society correspond with his most honourable calling. The objects of school-instruction, I said. In a fundamental study of Language, pursued, as it must be, amid old modes of speech, far removed from our habits of thought, a deeper insight into ideas is gained; and from the works of the Ancients, by means of which this study is pursued, an excellent and ennobling spirit speaks to the youthful mind. For this reason, the Teacher in these lower Schools should be a partaker of the Idea, because he has imperceptibly to familiarize the youth with the high and noble, before the latter is able to distinguish these from the vulgar,-to accustom him to these, and to estrange him from the low and