"I willed, and Sense was given me.
I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom came upon me.
And I set her before, (preferred her to,) kingdoms
and thrones."

The common translation in our English Apocrypha loses the entire
meaning of this passage, which--not only as the statement of the
experience of Florence in her own education, but as universally
descriptive of the process of all noble education whatever--we had
better take pains to understand.

First, says Florence "I willed, (in sense of resolutely desiring,) and
Sense was given me." You must begin your education with the distinct
resolution to know what is true, and choice of the strait and rough
road to such knowledge. This choice is offered to every youth and maid
at some moment of their life;--choice between the easy downward road,
so broad that we can dance down it in companies, and the steep narrow
way, which we must enter alone. Then, and for many a day afterwards,
they need that form of persistent Option, and Will: but day by day, the
'Sense' of the rightness of what they have done, deepens on them, not
in consequence of the effort, but by gift granted in reward of it. And
the Sense of difference between right and wrong, and between beautiful
and unbeautiful things, is confirmed in the heroic, and fulfilled in
the industrious, soul.

That is the process of education in the earthly sciences, and the
morality connected with them. Reward given to faithful Volition.

Next, when Moral and Physical senses are perfect, comes the desire for