LESSON III.

BIOGRAPHY-RELIGIOUS INTERPRETATION.

WHEN we read the lives of men like ourselves belonging to such different ages of the world, and notice how they also exhibit the same principles which exist within ourselves-the same intellectual activity-the same noble and humble feelings-the same directing conscience, and then remember that we before considered these, when in our own mind, as the action of Deity, we have a wonderful and awful illustration of the universality and constancy of that action-of how God never changes or wearies-how time is nothing to him-how with him it is always one eternal Now; for he whispers the same lesson to day to our minds that he whispered to the patriarchs nearly four thousand years ago on the Plains of Syria. Space and distance are nothing to him. He is as present with Jerome in Palestine, with Augustine in Africa, as with us in England.

And then biography tells us, too, of the constancy and eternal sincerity of God's moral sentiments. He never ceases to whisper the same moral lessons into the minds of men. He never grows tired, though generation after generation and millions upon millions seem to heed him not; he ever goes on whispering that still small voice that will make the world hear it at the last.

What an example this is to us to be patient in teaching, and still to go on with quiet and unchanging hearts; giving forth all the good and the true that we can, although we behold no results of our work.

In the history of the minds who have lived in this world, but especially of the noblest, we read, then, as in a book, the testimony to God's moral nature. It is there that, on living page after page, He still writes out His moral sentiments and holy will. Indeed it is by the expression of himself in the human spirit that we learn the moral character of God.. The scriptures themselves, properly considered, are a select portion of that biography in which God has expressed, still more fully than in general, his will and nature. They are the divinest biography. And not only in reading them with reverence, but in perusing all the examples we can of noble life, we become more deeply impressed with the reality of God's moral grandeur.

Perhaps it may suggest itself to you at first that the scriptures are something more than biography. Yes, they are something more than the mere history of the conduct of the scripture writers; but they are an expression of their inward lifethe life inspired by God; and hence, in a higher sense, are still biography. And so the biography of all highest minds is furnished, not merely by the history of their lives, but by the writings, the poetry, the meditations, the refleetions, or other creations by which they have expressed the higher life that was in them. Thus the literature, at least, bequeathed to us by great minds, must be taken as a portion of their biography. And now you may understand why, in the arrangements of this temple of education, we consider biography so immediately introductory to religion, and make its courts next to the court of worship. Biography, you perceive, wisely read, reveals to us what is truly divine both in God and man; and it not only makes us know the divine-it makes us venerate it too. There is something divine within ourselves; but it is when we see it painted forth, as it were, at large in the life of nobler beings, that we discover its glory, and learn to reverence it both in them and ourselves. And this reverence for the divine in man once awakened, learns to mount up as worship to God above. If we give ourselves up to the religious impressions which biography makes, we shall be raised to devotional feelings, which will then find a glad relief in expressing themselves in the words of inspired devotion, such as we shall find in Psalm cxix, v. 137; or Psalm lxxxix, v. 14; Psalm xxxvi, v. 5, &c.; Psalm lxxi, v. 19. And I would earnestly recommend you for the cultivation of the religious life, both in yourselves and in your pupils, when, after turning to the religious contemplation of a subject, the mind is moved by religious feeling, to seek to give it expression by appropriate language. Remember that it is a general law of the mind that its life of every kind is brought out into fulness and distinctness by expression. But remember, also, that expression of our high feelings in language soon becomes untrue and merely sentimental, unless it is followed by correspondent expression in our whole life and conduct.

Lessons in biography should also be occasions for our trust in the presence and guidance of God. We see that he has been, from the beginning of time, with those who listened to

him and sought him; and we are sure, therefore, that he will be with us too, if we listen to him and seek him. Sentiments of trust rise, which we may express in the following words:— Psalm xxii, v. 4 and 5; Psalm xxiii, v. 1—6.

Such lessons are, also, the occasions for the exercise of our gratitude. There are no blessings which God has given us equal to the blessings of being able to realize some portion of the intelligent, the benevolent, the holy, and religious life; and we discover that it has been his method to give us this life chiefly through the instrumentality of greater minds who awaken it in us, who give us knowledge, call forth our reverence, and encourage us to goodness. Let us thank God, then, above all things, for his gift to us of these superior minds, which are lights and fountains of the world.

CHAPTER XVI.

BUILDING IN THE COURTS OF HUMANITY,

CONTINUED.

LESSON I.

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY.-INTELLECTUAL INTERPRETATION.

WE wish, however, to know more of our common family than we can learn from biography. We should, as I before said, be willing to know something of every individual life; but, as that is impossible, we must adopt the plan which we adopt in all sciences, when we have to deal with a vast number of individuals; we must group the individuals into classes, and be content with knowing something of each class, without descending to the peculiarities of each individual. Human beings, then, are most easily classed into races, those of each race into families, and those of each family into nations. We first of all look down, in imagination, on the whole human race (p. 119), and see them spread over the earth; and, to our minds, they divide themselves, first, into the five races— the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Malay, and Negro. Next, the Caucasian race divides itself principally into the Celtic, the Teutonic, the Greek-Latin, the Sclavonic, the Shemitic, the Indian, the Tatar, and the Coptic families; and so of the others. The Teutonic family divides itself into the German, the Danish, the Norwegian, the Swedish, the Icelandic, the Hollandish (or Dutch), the Flemish (or Belgian), the Swiss, the English, and Lowland Scotch nations. The GreekLatin family divides itself into the French, the Italian, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Greek nations. The Shemitic family divides into the Arab, the Jewish, and, generally, the indigenous nations inhabiting Western Asia. The Celtic family contains the Gaelic, the native Irish, the Welsh, Manx, Cornish, and Bretonese nations.

About these races, families, and nations the mind wishes

to know facts similar to those which it wished to know about individuals-How has such people advanced in this various life which we are created to realize? A word has been invented to express this advancement of a whole people in life—it is "civilization." What we always wish to know of a people, therefore, is, What advancement has it made in civilizationin other words, in material, intellectual, benevolent, holy, and religious life? We are interested in a people, as in an individual, precisely in proportion to the development of its life. As we called the study of the individual life biography (from bios, life, and graphia, description), we may call the study of the life of a people poliography (from polis, a state or community, and graphia, description).

In the study of poliography, then, we first contemplate the different progress of the races, and find that the Caucasian is generally in great advance of the others in the attainment of every kind of well-being, while different branches of the Negro family are sunk to a condition scarcely above that of the inferior animals.

Of the Caucasian race, the Teutonic nations-the English, the Americans, the Germans, have preceded all others in the world in the present day. But the Greek-Latin nations, especially the French and the Italians, nearly rival them; and all the nations of this latter family have among them relics of ancient civilization, which show that once that family was far in advance of all the rest.

The Shemitic nations are, at present, in a very low state of civilization; but, there are among them traditions and relics, especially among the Jews, and in Babylon, and Nineveh, which show that in ancient times some of them had attained considerable civilization, and the Jews, especially, considerable moral and religious civilization.

The Indian nations are at present in an inferior state of civilization; but there are among them, too, traditions and relics which show that in ancient time there was a considerable Indian civilization.

The Coptic nations are also, at present, in a low state of civilization; but there exist throughout the valley of Egypt and Nubia, relics of architecture and other arts, which show that there was anciently a considerable Coptic civilization.

We are naturally led to study, first, those people which exhibit the greatest proofs of present, or relics of past, civi