ethics of heathen
philosophy, wherein knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue,
is a proof how slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of
mankind, when compared with the Saviour's; for hard indeed would it be
to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or
contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption;
since, in this state of ordeal requiring active duties, very few in
any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be
devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent Heaven as a
college for the learned. Therefore the rules of the Celestial Legislator
are rendered clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest."

RICCABOCCA.--"And that which Plato and Zeno, Pythagoras and Socrates
could not do, was done by men whose ignorance would have been a by-word
in the schools of the Greek. The gods of the vulgar were dethroned; the
face of the world was changed! This thought may make us allow, indeed,
that there are agencies more powerful than mere knowledge, and ask,
after all, what is the mission which knowledge should achieve?"

PARSON.--"The Sacred Book tells us even that; for after establishing the
truth that, for the multitude, knowledge is not essential to happiness
and good, it accords still to knowledge its sublime part in the
revelation prepared and announced. When an instrument of more than
ordinary intelligence was required for a purpose divine; when the
Gospel, recorded by the simple, was to be explained by the acute,
enforced by the energetic, carried home to the doubts of the Gentile,
the Supreme Will joined to the zeal of the earlier apostles the learning
and genius of Saint Paul,--not holier than the others, calling himself
the least, yet labouring more abundantly than they all, making himself
all things unto all men, so that some might be saved. The ignorant may
be saved no less surely than the wise; but here comes the wise man who
helps to save. And how the fulness and animation of this grand Presence,
of this indomitable Energy, seem to vivify the toil, and to speed the
work! 'In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers,
in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in
the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
amongst false brethren.' Behold, my son! does not Heaven here seem to
reveal the true type of Knowledge,--a sleepless activ