ate.
Goodwill had none of these unhappy rooms in his sweet house!" Nothing
could exceed the kindness of the Interpreter himself; but his house was
full of annoyances and offences and obstructions to Mr. Feeble-mind. He
did not like the Interpreter's house, and he got out of it as fast as he
could, with his mind as feeble as when he entered it; and, what was
worse, with his temper not a little ruffled.

And we see this very same intellectual laziness, this very same downright
dislike at divine truth, in our own people every day. There are in every
congregation people who take up their lodgings at the gate and refuse to
go one step farther on the way. A visit to the Interpreter's House
always upsets them. It turns their empty head. They do not know where
they are. They will not give what mind they have to divine truth, all
you can do to draw them on to it, till they die as feeble-minded, as
ignorant, and as inexperienced as they were born. They never read a
religious book that has any brain or heart in it. The feeble _Lives_ of
feeble-minded Christians, written by feeble-minded authors, and published
by feeble-minded publishers,--we all know the spoon-meat that multitudes
of our people go down to their second childhood upon. Jonathan Edwards--a
name they never hear at home, but one of the most masculine and seraphic
of interpreters--has a noble discourse on The Importance and Advantage of
a thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth. "Consider yourselves," he says,
"as scholars or disciples put into the school of Christ, and therefore be
diligent to make proficiency in Christian knowledge. Content not
yourselves with this, that you have been taught your Catechism in your
childhood, and that you know as much of the principles of religion as is
necessary to salvation. Let not your teachers have cause to complain
that while they spend and are spent to impart knowledge to you, you take
little pains to learn. Be assiduous in reading the Holy Scriptures. And
when you read, observe what you read. Observe how things come in.
Compare one scripture with another. Procure and diligently use other
books which may help you to grow in this knowledge. There are many
excellent books extant which might greatly forward you in this knowledge.
There is a great defect in many, that through a lothness to be at a
little expense, they provide themselves with no more helps of this
nature." Weighty, wise, and lamentably true words.

"Mu