an conceive to give any countenance to his claim;
except that as the great progenitor of the race of authors, his sufferings
correspond well with the calamities of which that unfortunate generation
have always so largely partaken.

22. The benefits of this invention, if it may be considered an invention,
are certainly very great. In oral discourse the graces of elegance are more
lively and attractive, but well-written books are the grand instructors of
mankind, the most enduring monuments of human greatness, and the proudest
achievements of human intellect. "The chief glory of a nation," says Dr.
Johnson, "arises from its authors." Literature is important, because it is
subservient to all objects, even those of the very highest concern.
Religion and morality, liberty and government, fame and happiness, are
alike interested in the cause of letters. It was a saying of Pope Pius the
Second, that, "Common men should esteem learning as silver, noblemen value
it as gold, and princes prize it as jewels." The uses of learning are seen
in every thing that is not itself useless.[25] It cannot be overrated, but
where it is perverted; and whenever that occurs, the remedy is to be sought
by opposing learning to learning, till the truth is manifest, and that
which is reprehensible, is made to appear so.

23. I have said, learning cannot be overrated, but where it is perverted.
But men may differ in their notions of what learning is; and, consequently,
of what is, or is not, a perversion of it. And so far as this point may
have reference to theology, and the things of God, it would seem that the
Spirit of God alone can fully show us its bearings. If the illumination of
the Spirit is necessary to an understanding and a reception of scriptural
truth, is it not by an inference more erudite than reasonable, that some
great men have presumed to limit to a verbal medium the communications of
Him who is everywhere His own witness, and who still gives to His own holy
oracles all their peculiar significance and authority? Some seem to think
the Almighty has never given to men any notion of Himself, except by words.
"Many ideas," says the celebrated Edmund Burke, "have never been at all
presented to the senses of any men _but by words_, as God,[26] angels,
devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have however a great influence over
the passions."--_On the Sublime and [the] Beautiful_, p. 97. That God can
never reveal facts or truths except by word