develop a tendency to go bodily to sleep; consciousness becomes
engrossed among the reflex and mechanical parts of life; and soon
loses both the will and power to look higher considerations in the
face. This is ruin; this is the last failure in life; this is
temporal damnation, damnation on the spot and without the form of
judgment. 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world
and LOSE HIMSELF?'

It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and
its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral
and religious education is directed; not only that of words and
doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are all
God's scholars till we die. If, as teachers, we are to say
anything to the purpose, we must say what will remind the pupil of
his soul; we must speak that soul's dialect; we must talk of life
and conduct as his soul would have him think of them. If, from
some conformity between us and the pupil, or perhaps among all men,
we do in truth speak in such a dialect and express such views,
beyond question we shall touch in him a spring; beyond question he
will recognise the dialect as one that he himself has spoken in his
better hours; beyond question he will cry, 'I had forgotten, but
now I remember; I too have eyes, and I had forgot to use them! I
too have a soul of my own, arrogantly upright, and to that I will
listen and conform.' In short, say to him anything that he has
once thought, or been upon the point of thinking, or show him any
view of life that he has once clearly seen, or been upon the point
of clearly seeing; and you have done your part and may leave him to
complete the education for himself.

Now, the view taught at the present time seems to me to want