ity, a pervading
agency, a dauntless heroism, an all-supporting faith?--a power, a power
indeed; a power apart from the aggrandizement of self; a power that
brings to him who owns and transmits it but 'weariness and painfulness;
in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness,'--but a power distinct from the mere circumstance of the
man, rushing from him as rays from the sun; borne through the air, and
clothing it with light, piercing under earth, and calling forth the
harvest. Worship not knowledge, worship not the sun, O my child! Let
the sun but proclaim the Creator; let the knowledge but illumine the
worship!"

The good man, overcome by his own earnestness, paused; his head drooped
on the young student's breast, and all three were long silent.

CHAPTER XXI.

Whatever ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale's dissertations by the wit
of the enlightened, they had a considerable, and I think a beneficial,
effect upon Leonard Fairfield,--an effect which may perhaps create less
surprise, when the reader remembers that Leonard was unaccustomed to
argument, and still retained many of the prejudices natural to his
rustic breeding. Nay, he actually thought it possible that, as both
Riccabocca and Mr. Dale were more than double his age, and had had
opportunities not only of reading twice as many books, but of gathering
up experience in wider ranges of life,--he actually, I say, thought it
possible that they might be better acquainted with the properties and
distinctions of knowledge than himself. At all events, the parson's
words were so far well-timed, that they produced in Leonard very much
of that state of mind which Mr. Dale desired to effect, before
communicating to him the startling intelligence that he was to visit
relations whom he had never seen, of whom he had heard but little, and
that it was at least possible that the result of that visit might be to
open to him greater facilities for instruction, and a higher degree in
life.

Without some such preparation, I fear that Leonard would have gone forth
into the world with an exaggerated notion of his own acquirements, and
with a notion yet more exaggerated as to the kind of power that such
knowledge as he possessed would obtain for itself. As it was, when
Mr. Dale broke to him the news of the experimental journey before
him, cautioning him against being over sanguine, Leonard received the
intelligence with a serious meekness,