the
mere demands of the body, seeks to penetrate the deep springs of life,
discern the exquisite organism of an insect's wing, measure the stars,
and analyze the light that reveals them.

Possessing an intellect of so fine a nature, it is not to be questioned
that, according to our opportunities, it is incumbent on us to carry
forward its improvement from childhood to hoary age. A power like this,
of indefinite expansion, in directions surpassingly noble, among
subjects infinitely grand, has been conferred that it might be expanded,
and go on expanding in an eternal progression; that it might sweep far
beyond its present horizon and firmament, where the stars now shining
above us, shall become the jeweled pavement beneath us, while above
still roll other spheres of knowledge, destined in like manner to
descend below us as the trophies of our victorious progress.

To bury such an intellect as this in the commonplaces of a life of mere
sense; to confine it to the narrow circle of a brute instinct and
reason; to live in such a world, with the infinite mind of Jehovah
looking at us from all natural forms, breathing around us in all tones
of music, shining upon us from all the host of heaven, and soliciting us
to launch away into an atmosphere of knowledge and ascend to an
acquaintance with the great First Cause, even as the bird challenges the
fledgling to leave its nest, and be at home on the wing; to live amid
such incitements to thought, yet never lift the eyes from the dull round
of physical necessities, is treason toward our higher nature, the
voluntary defacement of the grandest characteristic of our being. The
education of the intellect is not a question to be debated with men who
have the slightest appreciation of their noble capacities. The
obligation to improve it is commensurate with its susceptibility of
advancement and our opportunities. It is not limited to a few years in
early life, it presses on us still in manhood and declining age. Such is
a general statement of the duty of intellectual improvement.

In the actual education of the mind, our course will necessarily be
modified by the ultimate objects at which we aim. Properly these are
twofold--the first general, the second specific. The first embraces the
general training of our intellectual powers, with direct reference to
the high spiritual life here and hereafter. We place before us that
state of immortality to which the present stands in the relation