and his feet swift to shed blood. It
may, again, be pitiable, as in those human butterflies, who live only to
enjoy, or to minister to, what they call luxury and fashion. And it may
be again--when it calmly and deliberately asserts itself to be a
philosophy, and an explanation of man and of the universe, and gives
itself magisterial airs, however courteously and kindly--it may be then,
I dare to think, a little ludicrous.

But as for its dignity, I leave to you to say which of the two beings is
the more dignified, which the more abject--a little organism of flesh and
blood, at most not more than six feet high, liable to be destroyed by a
tile off the roof, or a blast of foul gas, or a hundred other accidents;
standing self-poised and self-complacent in the centre of such an
universe as this, and asserting that it acknowledges no superior, and
needs no guide--or the same being, awakened to the mystery of his own
actual weakness, his possible strength; his own actual ignorance, his
possible wisdom; his own actual sinfulness, his possible holiness: and
then; by a humility which is the highest daring; by a self-distrust which
is the truest self-assertion, vindicating the divine element within, by
taking personal and voluntary service under no less a personage than Him
who made him; and crying directly to the Creator of sun and stars and all
the universe--I am Thine. Oh save the me which Thou hast made?

Make up your own minds, make up your minds, which of the two figures is
the more abject, which the more dignified. For me, I have had too good
cause, long since, to make up mine.

And if you wish to judge further for yourselves, whether the teaching of
the Psalmist is more likely to produce an abject or a dignified
character, I advise you to ponder carefully a certain singular--I had
almost said unique--educational document, written by men who had
thoroughly imbibed the teaching of this psalm; a document which, the
oftener I peruse it, arouses in me more and more admiration; not only for
its theology, but for its knowledge of human nature; and not only for
what it does, but for what it does not, say. I mean the Catechism of the
Church of England.

You will remark at first sight, that it does not affect to teach the
child; with one remarkable exception to be hereafter noticed. It does
not tell the child--You should do this, you should not do that.

It is strictly an Educational Catechism. It tries to educe--that i