d Stephen.

LECTURE XXXIV.

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1 CORINTHIANS xiv, 20.

_Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit, in malice be ye
children, but in understanding be men_.

It would be going a great deal too far to say, that they who fulfilled
the latter part of this command, were sure also to fulfil the former;
that they who were men in understanding, were, therefore, likely to be
children in malice. But the converse holds good, with remarkable
certainty, that they who are children in understanding, are
proportionally apt to be men in malice: that is, in proportion as men
neglect that which should be the guide of their lives, so are they left
to the mastery of their passions; and as nature and outward
circumstances do not allow these passions to remain as quiet and as
little grown as they are in childhood,--for they are sure to ripen
without any trouble of ours,--so men are left with nothing but the evils
of both ages, the vices of the man, and the unripeness and ignorance of
the child.

It is indeed a strange and almost incredible thing, that any should ever
have united in their minds the notions of innocence and ignorance as
applied to any but literal children: nor is it less strange, that any
should ever have been afraid of their understanding, and should have
sought goodness through prejudice, and blindness, and folly. Compared
with this, their conduct was infinitely reasonable who weakened and
tormented their bodies in order to strengthen, as they thought, their
spiritual nature. Such conduct was, by comparison, reasonable because
there is a great deal of bodily weakness and discomfort, which really
does not interfere with the strength and purity of our character in
itself, although, by abridging our activity, it may lessen our means of
usefulness. But what should we say of a man who directed his ill usage
of his body to that part of our system which is most closely connected
with the brain; who were purposely to impair his nervous system, and
subject himself to those delusions and diseased views of things which
are the well-known result of any disorder there? Yet this is precisely
what they do who seek to mortify and lower their understanding. It is as
impossible that they should become better men by such a process, as if
they were literally to take medicines to affect their nerves or their
brain, in the hope of becoming idiotic or delirious. It is, in fact, the
wor