The spirit of industry, embodied in a
man's daily life, will gradually lead him to exercise his powers on
objects outside himself, of greater dignity and more extended
usefulness. And still we must labour on; for the work of self-
culture is never finished. "To be employed," said the poet Gray,
"is to be happy." "It is better to wear out than rust out," said
Bishop Cumberland. "Have we not all eternity to rest in?"
exclaimed Arnauld. "Repos ailleurs" was the motto of Marnix de St.
Aldegonde, the energetic and ever-working friend of William the
Silent.
It is the use we make of the powers entrusted to us, which
constitutes our only just claim to respect. He who employs his one
talent aright is as much to be honoured as he to whom ten talents
have been given. There is really no more personal merit attaching
to the possession of superior intellectual powers than there is in
the succession to a large estate. How are those powers used--how
is that estate employed? The mind may accumulate large stores of
knowledge without any useful purpose; but the knowledge must be
allied to goodness and wisdom, and embodied in upright character,
else it is naught. Pestalozzi even held intellectual training by
itself to be pernicious; insisting that the roots of all knowledge
must strike and feed in the soil of the rightly-governed will.
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