A HOMILY

ON

Soul Education.

EMBLEMS OF SOUL WORK.-No. VI.

"But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."-2 Peter iii. 18.

ATIONAL Education is again the question of the hour. Our government, composed of men of various measures of mental power, degrees of culture, and types of thought, has brought in a Bill for educating the children of the poor. This measure has been discussed in Parliament, is now being canvassed by every sect in England, and has loaded the table of the House of Commons with petitions both for and against its provisions. To criticise it here we cannot; neither our space nor purpose will admit of this. I may, however, in passing on to the leading subject which I have set before me, offer two or three remarks on this government measure. I regard it as an invasion of one of the fundamental rights of humanity. Of all the prerogatives of our nature none is more sacred, none should be held more inviolate, than the right of every parent to educate his own child. No man or body of men, no religious sect, or politi

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cal party, has any moral authority whatever to snatch from the parent this educating prerogative. If the parent voluntarily delegates this power to a schoolmaster, a church, or a government, well and good. He has exercised his right and perhaps served his children in the matter. But to drag children to school contrary to the wishes of their parents is mental kidnapping and nothing less. I remark again that the supposed national necessity for this measure reveals a national evil that reflects discredit upon the rulers of the land. What is that evil? Pauperism. Why do not the poor in England educate their own children? It must be either for the want of a disposition or the want of ability. Is it the former? No! With a few exceptions, found only amongst those who have been dehumanized by hardening want and crime, parents everywhere throughout the land earnestly desire the education of their children; the parental instinct struggles and prays for it. The lack of ability is the cause. The pauperism which has grown to such a hideous enormity in this country as makes the hearts of true philanthropists bleed, and enlightened patriots stand aghast, paralyses the educating ability of parents in the lower ranks of society. The first great duty of the government should be to remove this obstruction. To force a schoolmaster on families whose parents and children are starving for want of food is tantalizing mockery. But how can our legislators remove this huge hindrance to a national education? There are many ways. I point to one only. The waste lands of England, amounting, we are told, to 2,000,000 acres, would afford labour and ample support for all the poor for ages to come. A tax of only two shillings per acre would speedily put an end to all our pauperism. Such a tax would bring land into the market for cultivation on reasonable terms, and produce a revenue that could be employed to open up new fields of industry and supply means for education that would be equal to all the emergencies of the people. The Author of our being has deposited in the soil the germ of

all the necessaries and comforts of human life: all food and clothing are there. The men who hold these acres uncultivated, lock up the chests which contain all the provisions for human wants. If they choose to hold the keys of nature's bountihood in their hands, let them be taxed for the privilege. Cultivate the waste lands of England, and the people will soon build schools for themselves and save Government the trouble. In passing on I offer another remark on this measure, and that is, that a sad fallacy runs through the minds of all its advocates. The fallacy is this,-that education, which in its popular sense means instruction in the elements of knowledge and the art of reading and writing, is an antidote to immorality and crime. This is a huge error. The heart, not the brain, is the spring of human conduct. Men don't act from their ideas, but from their feelings. A dishonest nature uninstructed will play the felon on a small scale, but enlighten it with the elements of knowledge and it shall construct swindling schemes that shall bring ruin to a whole community, and create a panic in the commerce of a country whose disastrous influences shall be felt for many a year.

Now the main subject on which I wish to fasten your attention for a few minutes is soul education. What is it? I have taken the text as suggesting the best answer I can find. It indicates that it is growth, and growth in "the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ."

I. Soul education is GROWTH. The true progress of the soul is frequently represented in Holy Writ as growth. Thus it is said that the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon." Again, "he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon; again, "ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." Paul expresses the same idea in his letters to the Ephesians; he says, "speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things;" and Peter also, not only in the text, but elsewhere as well, expresses the same doctrine.

He says, "desiring the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." The Bible, therefore, clearly shows that the true education of man is growth. This implies

First: That the soul is a vital existent. A dead thing cannot grow. Where life is not, there is no growth; where life once was, but has departed, growth has ceased. The false views of education which are painfully present throughout the civilised world, are based upon an ignorance of what soul is. Sometimes education is spoken of as if the mind was a dead vessel, into which a certain amount of information is to be poured until it is filled. The instructor endeavours to cram the memory of his pupil with names and dates, facts and rules. But the putting into the mind all the facts of science and history is not education, is not growth, nay, this may check growth, and crush the inner germs of life. Too much soil thrown upon the seed will exclude the sun's rays, and make it rot. There are many wellinformed men who have never been educated, whose souls have never grown. Sometimes education is spoken of as if the mind was some stone, on which the instructor was to act as a lapidary, to chisel it into some graceful form, and polish it into beauty. Hence we are constantly hearing of the accomplishments, such as music, painting, drawing, and the fashionable in style of talk and gait. Some of the most uneducated people in the world possess the most of these meretricious accomplishments. Under all such external brilliancy there are paralyzed energies and stinted souls. Sometimes education is spoken of as if the mind was arable land, which has to be ploughed and harrowed in order to receive and germinate seed. Philosophically, nothing can grow in the soul; it is not the facts nor principles that you impart to the mind, that will grow. They remain dead things in the memory-worse than useless, unless the soul takes them up-drinks them in as healthy trees drink in the sunbeam and the shower. It is not the water or the light that grows in the plant, but the plant that grows in them.

The mind, then, is not a vessel, or a stone, or a field; it is a vital existent, to whose nature you can add nothing, and from which nothing can be taken.

That soul education is a growth, implies

Secondly: That the soul is a vital existent possessing developable powers. There are living things that have not the power of growth. Some, perhaps, have been created with their nature fully developed. There is no power in them of coming to any higher point. And others have passed through all the stages of development, and are exhaustedthe culminating point has been reached, and decay sets in. The autumn of its life has come and gone, and the cold hand of winter is on its heart. It is not so with the soul. Its potentialities are unbounded. Omniscience only knows what greatness of intellect, grandeur of character, splendour of achievements, come within the power of every mind, however humble. Vast fields of thought, broad landscapes of beauty, mighty forests of brave deeds, slumber within the breast of every child, as in one acorn mighty forests sleep. The man who learns to draw from his own soul, opens up fathomless deeps within. The law of mind is, that it "scattereth and yet increaseth." Nothing is so fecund as thought: one often begets myriads. Every true idea is a key to unlock new treasures. It is to the soul, as the opening of a gate into a more magnificent garden, or the unsealing of a deeper and a clearer well, or the discovery of a new and richer mine of wealth.

That soul education is a growth, implies

Thirdly That the soul is a vital existent, possessing developable powers, requiring developing conditions. The seed may contain a germinant power capable of covering continents with fields of golden grain; yet if it remains shut up in the granary, or buried under a rock, it will never be anything more than dry dust. It is so with the soul. However great its latent power, though it contains the germs of seraphic genius, unless it is placed in certain conditions, it