f infinitely great and
transcendent power, to which there is no such barrier, and that this
transcendent, all-knowing, all-powerful mind, is continually in direct
contact with the very essence of your mind? Can I influence your
thinking faculties, and cannot the infinite God, who made those
faculties? Can He who gave our bodies all their power of growth and
strength, not give growth and strength to our minds? I do not profess to
understand how the divine mind acts upon the human mind. I cannot always
understand even how one human mind acts upon another. But of the fact I
make no more question, than I do of the powers of flame, of steam, or of
gravitation. And, as one set here to guide you in your mental progress,
in all sober earnestness, I exhort you devoutly to invoke the aid of the
Holy Ghost in the promotion of your studies--not merely to help you to
use your acquisitions rightly, for his honor and the good of your kind,
but to help you in making those acquisitions. If you would rise superior
to discouragement, if you would acquire that mental discipline which is
to enable you to study, and to recite and to teach in the very best and
highest manner, pray. Call mightily upon God the Holy Ghost, who is
after all the great educator and teacher of the human race. Carry your
feeble lamp to the great fountain of light and radiance. Put your heart
into full accord and sympathy with that of your dear elder Brother.
Wrestle mightily with God in secret, as one that feels the burden of a
great want. Thus, my dear pupil, will you best fit yourself for the
duties of a student and of a teacher. For, believe me, there is sound
philosophy as well as religion, in the utterance of the wise man, "The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Surely that man is a
fool, who in cultivating mind, whether his own or that of another,
neglects to invoke the aid of the Infinite Mind.

XXIX.

AN ARGUMENT FOR COMMON SCHOOLS.

The argument for popular education is familiar and trite, and yet it
needs to be occasionally re-stated and enforced. There is no community
in which there is not a considerable number of persons grossly and
dangerously ignorant, and there are many communities in which the
majority of the people are in this condition. There is no community in
which the importance of general education is over-estimated; there are
unfortunately many communities in which education is held to be the
least important of public i