st kind of self-murder; for it is a presumptuous destroying of that
which is our best life, because we dread to undergo those trials which
God has appointed for the perfecting both of it and of us.

But from the wilful blindness of these men, let us turn to the Christian
wisdom of the Apostle: "In malice be ye children, but in understanding
be men." Let us turn to what is recorded of our Lord in his early life,
at that age when, as man, the cultivation of his understanding was his
particular duty--that he was found in the temple, sitting in the midst
of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions: not asking
questions only, as one too impatient or too vain to wait for an answer,
or to consider it when he had received it; not hearing only, as one
careless and passive, who thinks that the words of wisdom can improve
his mind by being indolently admitted through the ears, with no more
effort than his body uses when it is refreshed by a cooling air, or when
it is laid down in running water; but both hearing and asking questions;
docile and patient, yet active and intelligent; knowing that the wisdom
was to be communicated from without, but that it belongs to the vigorous
exercise of the power within, to apprehend it, and to convert it to
nourishment.

Now, what is recorded of our Lord for our example, as to the manner in
which he received instruction when delivered by word of mouth, this same
thing should we do with that instruction, which, as is the ease with
most of ours, we derive from reading. Put the Scriptures in the place of
those living teachers whom Christ was so eager to hear; the words of
Christ, and of his Spirit, instead of those far inferior guides from
whom, notwithstanding, he, for our sakes, once submitted to learn; and
what can be more exact than the application of the example? Let us be
found in God's true temple, in the communion of his faithful
people,--his universal Church, sitting down as it were, surrounded by
the voices of the oracles of God--prophets, apostles, and Jesus Christ
himself: let us be found with the record of these oracles in our hands,
both reading them and asking them questions.

It is quite clear that what hinders a true understanding of anything is
vagueness; and it is by this process of asking questions that vagueness
is to be dispelled: for, in the first place, it removes one great
vagueness, or indistinctness, which is very apt to beset the minds of
many; namely, t