Mustof

Limit of Goan, M. D.

THE SPIRIT OF TRUE SCHOLARSHIP.

YOUR true scholar is a great rarity. Nature laboreth long to produce such an one, and after many ineffectual strivings and rude abortions, gives birth to one in an age, a world's wonder. Let us contemplate this strange genesis, and inquire, whence, and of what temper and elements it is, and by what it is differenced from other men, and stands thus aloof. It is neither his arrogance nor our servile fear that has placed him above the rest of us; but his native hugeness of stature overshadows us, and we reverence. We are of the earth; we creep along its surface; our sight is obstructed by its hills and mists. He is a clear intelligence; he partakes of the heavenly; in him resides swiftness and strength; he overtops the mountains, and far above the cloud region, breathes the pure ether. Yet we do not worship. He is only our taller brother. The same spark is in us too. We may one day take long strides like him.

THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUE SCHOLAR IS A SELF-DENYING

SPIRIT.

God hath not given to every man to possess and enjoy all things. Nature is never prodigal of her favors. He may be rich, if he will, or learned, or in honor, or indolent, but not all and at once. The same sun that ripens the cotton plant, scorches the grass. One tree bears oranges, another

the bread fruit; but no one both. Man may choose what he will be, and then by a laborious paying of the price which necessity exacts, he shall become that thing he has chosen. Would he be rich, then he shall work with callous hands, rise with the lark, feed scantily, save odds and ends, and suffer all the ills of poverty. Or grasping at stocks, become the associate and friend of the knave and outlaw, and the worn hat and threadbare coat will be an emblem of the leanness that is within. But the end is sure. He will be rich. He has chosen his part, which, as the laws of nature are certain, "shall not be taken from him." Yet this man can not become wise, or honored, or beloved.

Such is our weakness that the visible excludes the ideal. Gold and silver take, in the judgments of men, the precedence, of the riches that are in the intellect of men. The voice of applauding multitudes is louder and more persuasive than the low, quiet broodings of the affections. A place in a faction is more desirable than in the immortal brotherhood of the good and wise.

Yet all these influences of sense, and custom, and conventional judgment, which so temptingly allure all men, must the lover of true wisdom forego, and reject. They encumber and stifle him. Pythons are they, which need a Hercules to strangle them. Nay, they strangle the most of us. Yet he whom Nature hath made a worthy scholar, and to whom the right spirit has been given, be he sunken never so deep in these oppressive waters, by a native subtleness and upward pressure, emerges, and rises to his own pure element. The waves reach not him. Their roar is far below. He cares not to pamper the body. Like Erasmus, his first want is books; then if he has money left, he will buy clothes. Pulse and spring water, a rude pallet and a maple dish were fare and furniture enough for him, who has fellowship with heroes and sages, who provides no expensive entertainments for the living, but himself feeds on the treasured wisdom of the dead. He does not need a garnished house, and a costly retinue. He would be himself a fit dwelling for the spirit of divine wisdom, and has in the power of his knowledge all the principles of nature, as handmaids richly and spontaneously ministering to his wants. He desires not the commendation of the unthinking; for he is not of them. To the cheers or censures of the multitude he gives no heed,

for he is of that noble society, selected from the generous, and the just, the heroic and devoted, the pure and wise of all ages, who have been martyrs for the right, and who have mused in silence, in obscurity, in scorn, on the beauty and excellence of truth, till the flame has been kindled in them, and burned on consuming and inextinguishable.

The power that made man, has subjected him to toil. "By the sweat of thy brow" is the perpetual decree. The treasures that we covet, lie not upon the surface. Gems are in mines. The pearl dwells many fathoms down in the bosom of the sea. Truth too has her secret veins, which the rustic treads on daily and unwittingly. She lies in a deep well, to whose bottom only the stars look. He who searches for her with idle curiosity or vacant stare will not find her. She does not come in dreams. The scholar girds himself with a deliberate purpose. Whatever is needful he does, and shrinks from no discipline. He plods, delves, watches; he walks, runs, waits. Thankfully he receives the sudden light of an inspiration, or patiently spells out the mystic ́ characters in which nature's laws are written.

THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUE SCHOLAR IS A SINCERE SPIRIT.

It has no sympathy with error, it disdains falsehood, it despises and defies deceit. Truth is its element, its life. It loves the light, and walks forth boldly in it, that itself may be seen, and that it may see all things.

The true scholar must be sincere not only in word and action, but in purpose and thought. There must be no seeming in him; cant, hypocrisy and pretension are alien from his nature. He desires that only which truly is. The false shows of things, which dazzle and blind, have no charm for him. He aims at a real knowledge and substantial worth. He has to do with substance and heart. Forms have no value for him who would apprehend the "inwardness of all secrets." He who would be initiated in the hidden doctrine and rites of Eleusis must present himself, as with a cleansed body, so with a sincere mind, without doubt or mistrust, hoping and looking with single aim for the wisdom that was to be revealed. So the student who would enter the temple of truth, and behold with his own eyes the mysteries of nature, must pass on with that sincerity of heart which alone can give a serene purpose and a resolute