dinating the individual to the State; but, in reality, there never has been a period in history, nor a country in the world, in which the peculiarities of individual temper and character had freer play. This is not the best atmosphere for political action; but it is better than any other for giving vigor and life to the impulses of genius, and for cultivating those faculties -the reason and taste in which the highest genius can be shown. Such a cultivation needs discipline less than any; and of all the nations, Greece had the least of systematic discipline, least of instinctive deference to any one leading idea. But, for the same reason, the cultivation required less time than any other; and the national life of Greece is the shortest of all. Greek history hardly begins before Solon, and it hardly continues after Alexander; barely covering two hundred years. But its fruits are eternal. To the Greeks we owe the logic which has ruled the minds of all thinkers since. All our natural and physical science really begins with the Greeks; and, indeed, would have been impossible had not Greece taught men how to reason. To the Greeks we owe

the corrective which conscience needs to borrow from nature. Conscience, startled at the awful truths which she has to reveal, too often threatens to withdraw the soul into gloomy and perverse asceticism: then is needed the beauty which Greece taught us to admire, to show us another aspect of the Divine Attributes. To the Greeks we owe all modern literature; for though there is other literature even older than the Greek, the Asiatic, for instance, and the Hebrew, yet we did not learn this lesson from them they had not the genial life which was needed to kindle other nations with the communication of their own fire.

The discipline of Asia was the never-ending succession of conquering dynasties, following in each other's track like waves, an ever-moving yet neveradvancing ocean. Cycles of change were successively passing over her; and yet at the end of every cycle she stood where she had stood before, and nearly where she stands now. The growth of Europe has dwarfed her in comparison, and she is paralyzed in presence of a gigantic strength, younger but mightier than her own. But in herself she is no weaker than she ever was. The monarchs who once led Assyrian or Babylonian or Persian armies across half the world impose on us by the vast extent and rapidity of their conquests; but these conquests had in reality no substance, no inherent strength. This perpetual baffling of all earthly progress taught Asia to seek her inspiration in rest. She learned to fix her thoughts upon another world, and was disciplined to check by her silent protest the over-earthly, overpractical tendency of the Western nations. She was ever the one to refuse to measure heaven by the standard of earth. Her teeming imagination filled the church with thoughts "undreamt of in our philosophy." She had been the instrument selected to teach the Hebrews the doctrine of the immortality of the soul; for, whatever may be said of the early notions on this subject, it is unquestionable, that in Babylon the Jews first attained the clearness and certainty in regard to it which we find in the teaching of the Pharisees. So again, Athanasius, a thorough Asiatic in sentiment and in mode of arguing, was the bulwark of the doctrine of the Trinity. The Western nations are always tempted to make reason not only supreme, but despotic; and dislike to acknowledge

mysteries even in religion. They are inclined to confine all doctrines within the limits of spiritual utility, and to refuse to listen to dim voices and whispers from within, those instincts of doubt and reverence and awe, which yet are, in their place and degree, messages from the depths of our being. Asia supplies the corrective by perpetually leaning to the mysteriWhen left to herself, she settles down to baseless dreams, and sometimes to monstrous and revolting fictions; but her influence has never ceased to be felt, and could not be lost without serious damage.

ous.

Thus the Hebrews may be said to have disciplined the human conscience; Rome, the human will; Greece, the reason and taste; Asia, the spiritual imagination. Other races that have been since admitted into Christendom also did their parts, and others may yet have something to contribute; for, though the time for discipline is childhood, yet there is no precise line beyond which all discipline ceases. Even the gray-haired man has yet some small capacity for learning like a child; and, even in the maturity of the world, the early modes of teaching may yet find a place. But the childhood of the world was over when our Lord appeared on earth. The tutors and governors had done their work. It was time that the second teacher of the human race should begin his labor. The second teacher is Example.

The child is not insensible to the influence of

example. Even in the e rliest years, the manners, the language, the principles, of the elder begin to mould the character of the younger. There are not a few of our acquirements which we learn by example, without any, or with very little, direct instruction; as, for instance, to speak and to walk. But still example

at that age is secondary. The child is quite conscious that he is not on such an equality with grownup friends as to enable him to do as they do. He imitates, but he knows that it is merely play; and he is quite willing to be told that he must not do this or that till he is older. As time goes on, and the faculties expand, the power of discipline to guide the actions and to mould the character decreases; and, in the same proportion, the power of example grows. The moral atmosphere must be brutish indeed which can do deep harm to a child of four years. But what is harmless at four is pernicious at six, and almost fatal at twelve. The religious tone of a household will hardly make much impression on an infant; but it will deeply engrave its lessons on the heart of a boy growing towards manhood. Different faculties within us begin to feel the power of this new guide at different times. The moral sentiments are perhaps the first to expand to the influence; but gradually the example of those among whom the life is cast lays hold of all the soul, — of the tastes, of the opinions, of the aims, of the temper. As each restraint of discipline is successively cast off, the soul does not gain at first a real, but only an apparent freedom. The youth when too old for discipline is not yet strong enough to guide his life by fixed principles. He is led by his emotions and impulses. He admires and loves, he condemns and dislikes, with enthusiasm ; and his love and admiration, his disapproval and dislike, are not his own, but borrowed from his society. He can appreciate a character, though he cannot yet appreciate a principle. He cannot walk by reason and conscience alone: he still needs those supplies to the imperfection of our nature" which

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are given by the higher passions. He cannot follow what his heart does not love as well as his reason approve; and he cannot love what is presented to him as an abstract rule of life, but requires a living person. He needs to see Virtue in the concrete, before he can recognize her aspect as a divine idea. He instinctively copies those whom he admires; and in doing so imbibes whatever gives the color to their character. He repeats opinions without really understanding them; and in that way admits their infection into his judgment. He acquires habits which seem of no consequence, but which are the channels of a thousand new impulses to his soul. If he reads, he treats the characters that he meets with in his book as friends or enemies; and so, unconsciously, allows them to mould his soul. When he seems most independent, most defiant of external guidance, he is, in reality, only so much the less master of himself; only so much the more guided and formed, not indeed by the will, but by the example and sympathy of others.

The power of example probably never ceases during life. Even old age is not wholly uninfluenced by society; and a change of companions acts upon the character long after the character would appear incapable of further development. The influence, in fact, dies out just as it grew; and as it is impossible to mark its beginning, so is it to mark its end. The child is governed by the will of its parents; the man, by principles and habits of his own. But neither is insensible to the influence of associates, though neither finds in that influence the predominant power of his life.

This, then, which is born with our birth and dies