ions of the most majestic and moving
presence, have failed utterly to shape the character of disciples? Did
Alcibiades profit greatly by the conversation of Socrates? Was Judas
extremely ennobled by the companionship of Jesus? Was it to any
considerable purpose that the pure-minded, earnest, affluent Cicero
strewed the seeds of Stoic culture upon the wayside nature of his son?
Did Faustina learn much from Antoninus Pius, or Commodus from Marcus
Aurelius?

I think we must assume it as the judgment of common sense that there
neither is nor is likely to be any educational mortar wherein a fool may
be so brayed that he shall come forth a wise man. The broad, unequivocal
sentence of history seems to be that whoever is not noble by nature will
hardly be rendered so by art. Education can do much; it can foster
nobilities, it can discourage vices; but literal conveyance of lofty
qualities, can it effect that? Can it create opulence of soul in a
sterile nature? Can it cause a thin soil to do the work of a deep one?
We have seen harsh natures mellowed, violent natures chastened, rough
ones refined; but who has seen an essentially mean nature made
large-hearted, self-forgetful, fertile of grandest faiths and greatest
deeds? Who has beheld a Thersites transformed into an Achilles? Who a
Shylock, Iago, or Regan changed into an Antonio, Othello, or Cordelia,
or a Simon Magus into a Paul? What virtue of nature is in a man culture
may bring out; but to put nature into any man surpasses her competence.

Nay, it would even seem that in some cases the finest openings and
invitations for what is best in man must operate inversely, and elicit
only what is worst in him. Every profoundest truth, when uttered with
fresh power in history, polarizes men, accumulating atheism at one pole,
while collecting faith and resolve at the other. As the sun bleaches
some surfaces into whiteness, but tans and blackens others, so the sweet
shining of Truth illumines some countenances with belief, but some it
darkens into a scowl of hate and denial. The American Revolution gave us
George Washington; but it gave us also Benedict Arnold. One and the same
great spiritual emergency in Europe produced Luther's Protestantism and
Loyola's Jesuitism. Our national crisis has converted General Butler;
what has it done for Vallandigham?

It were easy to show that the deepest intelligence of the world concurs
with common sense in this judgment. Its declaration ever is,