Our lives have some weight, and let that be thrown into the right scale. The baneful effect of evil associates is little seen, in comparison to what is felt. The inocculation of thought ought to be better understood, and guarded with strong keepers.
The teachers of our primary and high schools should be selected with as direct reference to their morals as to their learning. Such nurseries of character should be strongly garrisoned with virtue and truth. Their examinations are of one side only ; and a classical education, not as much as the moral and spiritual, can lift the being higher. The pure and uplifting thoughts of the teacher, constantly imparted to her pupils, results higher than the heavens of her astronomy ; while the debased and unscrupulous mind, set in gems of scholarly attainments, imparts no lustre, but dims the characters it forms. Physicians, whom the sick employ in their helplessness, should be the guardians of virtue, and spiritual guides, when material things have failed, to give ease and hope. To the tremblers who know not the substance of Truth to heal them, they should be able to say, "When the mind is willing and the flesh is weak, we will plant your feet upon that rock, even the basis of spiritual power, whereby mind can control the body and elevate existence." Clergymen, on the watch-towers of the world, should upraise the standard of Truth fearlessly, and so advance their hearers that they love to grapple with the new idea, and unshackle their own thoughts. Christianity, more than popularity, should stimulate their labors, and progress start from our pulpits,—never be strangled there.
Mortal mind is a harp of many strings that discourses harmony or discord as the hand that sweeps over its strings is human or divine. Whatsoever inspires with Wisdom, Truth, or Love, be it song, sermon or science, blesses the human family ; they are the crumbs that fall from the Master's table, feeding the hungry, and giving to the thirsty living waters.—Science and Health.
