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 REV. ME.. KIRK'S ADDRESS 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, 
 
 August I, 1844. 
 
 r 
 
THE GREATNESS OF THE HUMAN SOUL. 
 
 AN 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, 
 
 SOUTH HADLEY, MASS. 
 
 August 1, 1844. 
 
 - / 
 BY EDWARD N. KIRK, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE MOUNT VERNON CHURCH, BOSTOK. 
 
 Published by vote of the Trustees, 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 24 CONGRESS STREET. 
 
 1844. 
 

ADDRESS. 
 
 Certain phenomena of the mind are very mysterious, 
 and seem to indicate a mysterious connection with worlds 
 and beings unseen. Philosophy indeed has ventured to 
 account for them, by asserting the existence of a previous 
 state, of which the soul still retains vague, but delightful 
 remembrances. This misty theory, however, has now 
 given place to the clear announcements of revelation. 
 The theory we reject. The facts we deem worthy of close 
 observation. There are in man sentiments, faculties, and 
 aspirings which reveal, as by glimpses, a hidden world 
 superior to any thing that we know through the senses. 
 These sentiments, functions and exercises of the soul are 
 of very opposite kinds ; some, pure and lofty ; others, 
 terrible perversions, illusions and wanderings, equally 
 revealing the grandeur of its functions and of its destiny. 
 I allude for example, to the prevalent discontent of the 
 world, which, although sinful in itself, is an indication 
 and perversion of that which is most ennobling. We pity 
 and condemn, while we admire the soul's dissatisfaction, 
 its insatiable longings that no possession of earth, no 
 worldly success can gratify. The richest man feels him- 
 self poor, and wants more ; the mightiest conqueror weeps 
 to find the world circumscribing the field of his enterprise 
 and triumphs. Michael Angelo dies with forms of beauty 
 and grandeur in his mind, unchisselled and unpainted. 
 
He never stood and gazed at the Sistine chapel, (where 
 his genius has left its proudest monument,) or at St. 
 Peter's pile, (to the beauty of which he mainly contribu- 
 ted,) and said, I am satisfied. He aspired, he hoped, at 
 the end, as at the beginning of his artistic race. You 
 have observed that on the thrones of the earth, in the 
 courts of princes, in the superior places of power, on the 
 crowned heights of fame and wealth, tlie heart is as really 
 discontented, as in the lower walks of life. In fact the 
 higher you raise man, and the more you enlarge his pos- 
 sessions, the more he betrays this infinite thirst, this tow- 
 ering ambition, this contempt of what is, and of what is 
 possessed. I am not justifying it ; I am not unaware of 
 the depravity it betrays ; it betrays depravity however 
 only as a perversion of all that is grand in the spirit 
 created after God's ima^e. 
 
 And then there are childish fancies, which belong to no 
 other creature than man in his infancy. Do you remem- 
 ber the wish so often indulged, that you could fly? After 
 lying upon the grass in the shade of a bright summer 
 afternoon, and watching the graceful motion of the birds, 
 and seeming to be yourself a swallow floating and skim- 
 ming the verdant meadow, you have retired to rest, and 
 still in dreams, burst the fetters of gravitation and swnng 
 along over fields and houses and trees; ''skimmed the 
 earth, soared above the clouds, bathed in the elysian dew 
 of the rainbow, inhaled the balmy smells of nard and 
 cassia, which the musky wings of the zephyrs scatter 
 through the cedared alleys of the Hasperides." The 
 most rational of the quadrupeds never dream so. I may 
 have attached too much to it ; while, on the other 
 hand, it may be more than a cerebral excitement. It 
 may be the struggling of a spirit born for freedom, 
 weary of its present state of enslavement to sense and 
 matter, and now rejoicing even to imagine itself free. 
 The love of romance and of legends, the greedy devour- 
 
ings of the Arabian nights' entertainments are among the 
 perversions \vhich have to ns the same mystical significa- 
 tion. The lunatic in his ravings has exposed to our view 
 some heights and depths of the human soul on which we 
 had never looked before. We have heard him utter songs 
 of praise and strains of eloquence that allied him to 
 seraphs ; and in an instant the blasphemies of damned 
 spirits, the deep thunder notes, the harshest gratings of 
 hell's discord tore our distracted ear. How wonderful, we 
 have exclaimed, is the human soul ! We have watched 
 its healthful movements too, and reached the same result. 
 The memory that gives to the child of yesterday the 
 venerable antiquity of the globe it inhabits — the imagi- 
 nation that makes the Christian of the nineteenth century 
 the familiar companion of that old Chaldean patriarch who 
 founded the Jewish nation, and of that Jewish Egyptian 
 sage who founded its polity — the imagination that gives 
 the inhabitant of a few square inches of earth a partial 
 omnipresence, and annihilates time and space, and makes 
 the past, present, future and distant all equally now and 
 here ; that admirable creative faculty which makes and 
 adorns fairer worlds than have ever met the dull eye ; — 
 these, as well as Faith and Hope and Prayer are to us 
 wonderful, all wonderful, when we have reached the 
 meaning of them. They all, good and bad, alike indicate 
 a spiritual nature with its own peculiar, illimitable desires, 
 its exalted relations, its boundless sphere of action. 
 
 You see it is the soul of which I mean to speak ; man's 
 true and very self; of man in his superior nature, and of 
 the more important departments of that nature. And to 
 reach our object, I would lead you to survey the higher 
 faculties of man — the causes of their being neglected — 
 the consequences of that neglect, and the remedy. 
 
 The higher faculties. 
 
 In asserting that there is something in man conferring 
 
6 
 
 on him an infinite value, I liave not adduced the clear 
 testimony of revelation. There the peculiar origin of 
 man's spirit is figuratively represented by the breathing of 
 God himself into a material frame which he had construc- 
 ted like the rest of the universe, of inert matter. There 
 his immortality is declared, there his companionship with 
 angelic beings, and his relations to God and the universe 
 are represented as most sublime. There the value of the 
 soul is set forth in the price of its redemption, as incalcula- 
 ble by man himself. But we have omitted all this ; prefer- 
 ring, on this occasion, to reach our position from the point 
 of common observation, from actual phenomena, which 
 none can even question. And we shall presume it to be 
 admitted by all parties, that there is in man something 
 of incalculable value ; that he is a being endowed with 
 exalted faculties, and created for a glorious destiny. And 
 with this admission in view, we ask you to observe the 
 employments, the hopes, the condition, the conversation, 
 the pleasures of the multitude, the majority of men. You 
 must admit that you see little there in harmony with this 
 theory of his dignity. And popular as the theory is, 
 readily believed as it is in its general form, yet so far are 
 men's daily thoughts from it, and so little influence does 
 it exert on us, that it is as really necessary to bring up the 
 evidence of our own superior endowments and responsibil- 
 ities as though it were doubted or denied. 
 
 The most precious of God's gifts to man, are his intel- 
 lect and his moral faculties. Let us survey them separate- 
 ly ; observing first the various forms of mere intellect and 
 intellectual sensibility. This exalts man because it gives 
 his weak frame power to subdue the strongest beasts of 
 the earth, and bend the rugged forces and the tortuous 
 works of nature to subserve his j^urposes. It is elevating, 
 because it is one of the endowments which most ennobles 
 man in the estimation of his fellow-man ; and because it 
 gives fellowship with the noblest minds; and because it 
 
makes him capable of intelligent alliance to Tiath and to 
 the whole mighty intellectual system. The intellect by 
 itself however, is not comparable to the moral nature of 
 man. It may be elevated indeed in the contemplation of 
 sublimity, beauty and truth ; gigantic in its comprehen- 
 sion of vastness, multitude and variety, and in its flights 
 toward the infinite. Still, it is a subordinate endowment, 
 and never so exalted as when it is subjected to the moral 
 sentiments. I propose to survey the grandeur of each 
 human soul by selecting from the common inheritance of 
 mind some of the finest specimens. And this I do, sup- 
 posing that each of us has something of the same rich 
 endowment, though it may be in altogether less degree 
 than is possessed by others. 
 
 Intellect has been the predominant quality in great war- 
 riors ; although generally separated from all the better 
 sentiments. There it has appeared in stupendous forms. 
 The battles, the campaigns of Hannibal, of Turenne, and 
 Marlborough, Washington, Wellington and Napoleon, were, 
 if you could consider them apart from the ambition, selfish- 
 ness, and cruelty which actuated many of them, and the in- 
 dividual suffering they caused, splendid displays of mental 
 power. It was not by brute force, but by intellect they 
 conquered. And while we admire that intellectual might 
 of Napoleon, let us remember that there is in every mind 
 here, at least the germ of that very energy and power of 
 combination, that capacity for observation of men and facts, 
 that memory and discernment and judgment which so emi- 
 nently characterized him. The power of intellect has dis- 
 tinguished all eminent painters, sculptors, architects and 
 musical composers. Place before you those three men of 
 genius, Angelo, Raphael and Rubens, and admire the 
 magnificence of created intellect. The first was Painter, 
 Sculptor, Architect, Poet and Engineer. His mind was a 
 world peopled by ideas vast and sublime. The anatomy 
 of his figures was astonishingly accurate. But while he 
 
8 
 
 conformed thus rigidly to nature, his figures in their air, 
 attitude and action surpassed nature. Tliey were men, 
 but unearthly men. His prophets are corporeal expressions 
 of the holiness and majesty of their oflice. There is a 
 masculine energy in his conceptions that really overpowers 
 you more than nature's realities. Raphael, on the con- 
 trary, excelled in beauty, purity of form and perfection of 
 design. He fully revived the severe beauty of the antique. 
 Rubens moved in another world. To speak only of his 
 excellencies, he was full of poetry and carried all nature 
 in his memory. His works abound in richness of compo- 
 sition, luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of coloring. But 
 who can enumerate even the surviving monuments of in- 
 tellectual power, taste and true sentiment ! We should 
 here pass in review all the public and private galleries of 
 painting and statuary in Europe, the surviving architecture 
 of Europe and Asia ; as well the magnificent productions 
 of the Grecian chisel, the Apollo, the Jupiter, the Venus, 
 the Torso, the Gladiator and the Parthenon, as the less 
 beautiful but more majestic productions of Egyptian genius, 
 the Karnak, the Pyramids, the Sphinxes ; the wonders of 
 Roman, Saxon, Saracenic art, and the endless richness 
 and luxuriousness of the architectural genius of the mid- 
 dle ages in Europe. Nor should the works of Handel, 
 Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven be forgotten in our cata- 
 logue. 
 
 Then let us turn to the men of science, the philoso- 
 phers, the sages, the legislators and statesmen who have 
 carried forward the human race in its career of civilization. 
 Plato has been called a blessed spirit who chooses for a 
 time to take up his abode on earth, to communicate that 
 which is necessary to it. There is in him a distinguishing 
 purity of thought, a grandeur of soul, a noble aspiring, a 
 freedom and vigor of imagination, in a word, a pure spirit- 
 uality ; and then a power of embodying the most spiritual 
 conceptions in the most exquisite forms, which force us to 
 
admire the created intellect of man. And what a gigantic 
 force do we behold in Aristotle, who bound the human 
 mind in chains for two thousand years, and is still fetter- 
 ing one of the most important universities in England ! 
 He seems to have labored among men with a conscious- 
 ness of his commission to give an intellectual regeneration 
 to the world. To his penetrating, industrious spirit, the 
 treasures of matter, mind and philosophy lay open ; so 
 that he could employ as it liked him, the nature or the 
 reason of things to erect the great throne on which he sat 
 so long undisputed sovereign of the intellectual world. 
 
 Now turn with us to another class of intellectual facul- 
 ties which exhibit the dignity of man — the poetic. 
 
 The poetic faculty, whether receptive or creative, is an ev- 
 idence that the human spirit is great. Through it in every 
 age the soul of man has uttered its profoundest thoughts 
 and feelings. When human society existed in its simpler 
 states, and before philosophy and science had interrupted 
 the dominion of fancy, leaving the imagination to people 
 the air and rocks and rivers and seas with all conceivable 
 shapes of beauty and terror, then poetry was found in its 
 simplest forms, giving utterance to the wildness and tend- 
 erness and strength of human feeling. Nothing has gone 
 deeper into the soul of man than the rhythmical language 
 of true poetry in that period ; and that, because nothing 
 has come out from deeper places of the soul. We speak 
 here not of the inspiration of prophecy nor of that of 
 piety. They are unrivalled. Probably David the king 
 and Watts the divine have given wings and spiritual vision 
 and elective fire to more souls than all the uninspired and 
 unsanctified men of their period or any other. Hear what 
 a living French poet says of his own art. "Naive and 
 simple," says LaMartine, " in the cradle of nations; fabu- 
 lous and marvellous as a nurse by the child's crib ; amor- 
 ous and pastoral among a young and rural people ; warlike 
 and epic among the warrior and conquering hordes ; mystic, 
 2 
 
10 
 
 lyric, proplietic or sententious in the theocracies of Egypt 
 and Judea; grave, philosophic and corrnpting in the ad- 
 vanced civilizations of Rome, of Florence or of Louis 
 XIV. ; dishevelled and howling in the epochs of convul- 
 sions and ruins, as in '93; new, melancholy, uncertain, 
 timid, audacious at the same time, in the days of social 
 regeneration and reconstruction as ours ! Later in the old 
 age of nations, sad, sombre, groaning and discouraged as 
 they, and breathing at the same time in its strophes the 
 mournful presentiments, the fantastic dreams of the world's 
 last catastrophe, and the firm and divine hopes of a resur- 
 rection of humanity under another form ; such is poetry." 
 
 M. Vinet in his fine critique on this view of poetry, has 
 said, " There was no poetry in Eden. Poetry is creation ; 
 to be a j)oet, is to reconstruct the universe ; and what had 
 the man of Eden to create, and why should he reconstruct 
 the universe? When innocence retired weeping from our 
 world, she met poetry on the threshold; they passed by 
 each other, cast on each other one look of tender recogni- 
 tion, and pursued their way, one towards heaven, the 
 other towards the habitations of men." This solves the 
 mystery of poetry. It is reconstruction, not of what we 
 personally have seen, but of the beautiful world which 
 our great progenitor knew, and for which we were created. 
 Hence true poetry is at once truth and exaggeration. 
 Hence its response in every heart, and its universal charm. 
 
 Go back to that earliest singer in the land of Uz ; an 
 Arab prince or sheik, perhaps of Abraham's stock. We 
 call him Job, and think we know him. Plis soul was 
 very deep, his eye Avas very clear, his vision very wide. 
 He was indeed only a man, and therefore erred in his in- 
 terpretation of God's ways. Still he went very deep into 
 the great secret of the universe, very deep; and so was a 
 true poet. 
 
 How shall we speak of Milton and Shakspeare and 
 Dante ! See the world of riches in the Paradise Lost ; its 
 
11 
 
 landscapes, its theological philosophy, its portraits of angels 
 and devils, its Paradise and Hell, its battles in mid heaven, 
 the coming down of Messiah to decide the contest ! In a 
 word, gaze upon that mighty monument of genius, the 
 sixth book of Paradise Lost ! And remember that all this 
 was the product of one mind ; remember that it was writ- 
 ten in declining life, and after the saddest reverse of for- 
 tune ! His voice is to us, now the sweetest flow of a 
 limpid stream, now the <' sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs 
 and harping symphonies." His mind was like the angels' 
 gymnastic ground, where 
 
 " O'er their heads. 
 Celestial armory, shield, helm and spear, 
 Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold." 
 
 Dante has been called "the voice often silent centuries 
 singing his mystic, unfathomable song." Look at him 
 quitting the Inferno, and moving up into the Purgatorio, 
 as he believed it ; false as fact — most true, most beautifid, 
 as emblem. It is the mountain of Purification, an emblem 
 of Repentance. The " tremolar dell 'onde," that trem- 
 bling of the ocean-waves under the first pure gleam of 
 morning, dawning afar off upon the wandering poet, is ex- 
 quisite. " Hope has now dawned ; never dying hope, if 
 in company still with heavy sorrow. The obscure sojourn 
 of demons and reprobate is under foot ; a soft breathing of 
 penitence mounts higher and higher, to the throne of 
 mercy itself." 
 
 It is a valuable suggestion of Carlyle, that this whole 
 Divina Comedia must be regarded as embodying the re- 
 ligious heart and faith of the middle ages, and the dramas 
 of Shakspeare as embodying the chivalry of past ages, the 
 outer world ; viewed in this light, what creations they 
 are ! 
 
 We must now leave them, and illustrate intellectual 
 greatness by one more class; the Orators ; men who em- 
 
12 
 
 ploy those " native colors and graces of speech, as true 
 eloquence, the daughter of virtue, can best bestow upon 
 her mother's praises." We know nothing on earth to 
 compare justly with the power of genuine oratory. Poetry 
 is powerful. But it is to be read or sung, away from the 
 poet. Aud its language is not the language of ordinary 
 hfe. Hence it pleases more, hence its dignity and myste- 
 rious magic ; and hence too, it sways the judgment less, 
 and sinks not so deep into the soul as oratory. The speaker 
 is there to utter his own words. It is a living man before 
 you. He is full of truth. He is a believer, he feels, and 
 he must make you feel. He is there to explain his mean- 
 ing, to urge his conviction, to connnunicate his feeling by 
 numberless signs. His attitude speaks, his eye, the mus- 
 cles of the face, the body, the arui, the hand, yea the fin- 
 gers speak. But above all, the voice ; this gives the fullest 
 and mightiest utterance to the spirit of man. And under 
 the full inspiration of a great theme and a great occasion, 
 it is, as one has well described it, " the piercing of a sword, 
 a winged thunderbolt, prostrating all opposition, inflaming 
 all souls." It were superfluous here to refer you to the 
 men who have displayed this power to a high degree. 
 
 We have now dwelt so long upon the merely intellectual 
 endowments of the human soul as to allow us only a brief 
 space for the moral and religious sentiments. These are 
 our link to the unseen, the spiritual world and to God its 
 author, infinite in being and excellence. Here is the true 
 dignity of man, that he is capable of knowing and loving 
 God, and of being loved by him. Let man look within 
 himself, and behold amid all other wonders, the greatest 
 wonder of creative power. Let him think of his own 
 conscience and heart, as ranking him among the first of 
 creatures ; the conscience, that eye to catch the smile or 
 frown of God, that ear to hear his approving or condemn- 
 ing voice ; that heart to reciprocate his love ! Here arc 
 spiritual and deathless powers, which, if they had never 
 
13 
 
 been perverted, would have made him the object of God's 
 unchanging love. These too are the facuhies by which 
 God's Spirit communes with us and dwells within us, re- 
 fining our spirits, and in this our state of apostacy, subdu- 
 ing our selfishness and self will, restoring the lost image of 
 our heavenly Father, and bringing our weak and fallen 
 nature into full conformity to Christ's glorious person. 
 And the superior degree of these powers has been possessed 
 in a thousand instances to one of intellectual power. The 
 solemn conflicts with passion and temptation, the victory 
 over self, the adherance to duty amidst scorn and abandon- 
 ment, the lofty hopes, the calm reliance on God, the weak- 
 ness and patience under injuries, the fortitude and courage 
 of pious men and women ; Oh, these are greater things 
 than crowns and sceptres, greater than genius, greater than 
 any and all things else on earth. What is greater in man 
 than Hope, when it takes the faithfulness of God for its 
 assurance, and with smiling visage and brilliant eye, lays 
 a strong hand upon the everlasting promises ! How clear 
 is the vision of that eye that looks undazzled and undi- 
 verted upon the throne of God, claims no less than a pos- 
 session amidst those celestial fields and glorious mansions, 
 a companionship with the princes of heaven, and to be a 
 brother to him who occupies the throne. Is there any 
 thing out of heaven more truly excellent than the mild 
 virtues of such women as Mary, the mother of our Lord, 
 Lady Russell, and the Dairyman's Daughter ? I know 
 nothing sweeter than the youth and the early piety of 
 President Edwards. It was eminently a combination of 
 the highest form of intellectual, spiritual, and domestic 
 life. His first religious exercises are pure, meek, quiet, 
 humble, and yet exalted to a degree truly angelical. You 
 cannot read a few pages at the commencement of his diary, 
 without feeling a heavenly atmosphere around your soul. 
 And our idea of these mental powers thus sanctified will 
 be enlarged by surveying their influence on society. It is 
 
14 
 
 seen in the domestic circle, where woman sheds a pure 
 and gentle Uyht on her own Httle em{)ire, malving home to 
 every inmate the dearest |)lace on eartli. It is seen in the 
 imniense influence wrought by the formers and reformers 
 of society ; in the silent and gentle labors of the pious 
 teacher, or in the mighty etforis of Luther and many mod- 
 ern missionaries, of the men who wrote what has been 
 well styled the martyr-literature of England, " character- 
 ized by a depth and seriousness of feeling, a direct and 
 powerftd flashing upon the soul, superior to any remains of 
 Greek literature." Here are the most admirable combina- 
 tions of the highest faculties. 
 
 By this superficial glance at the mind, as its powers have 
 been developed by many individuals in difl^erent ages of 
 the world, we may form some estimate of the worth of the 
 human intellect and heart, of your mental powers and of 
 mine as individuals. 
 
 We are now led to inquire into the causes of that gene- 
 ral neglect and undervaluing of the true riches and orna- 
 ments which every one possesses. That there is such 
 neglect and undervaluing, can scarcely need to be proved. 
 The evidence of it lies upon the very surface of society. 
 It is seen in the frivolous amusements to which those of 
 every class resort, not so much for the legitimate purpose 
 of relaxing minds that have been bent to their utmost, as 
 to prevent the mind from preying on itself. It is seen in 
 the style and topics of conversation ; in the class of books 
 and papers now most in demand ; in the solicitude of pa- 
 rents to have the course of education soon finished, and 
 their children out making their fortunes, and enjoying the 
 world ; in the habit of most young persons to abandon 
 the severe employment of the intellectual powers, imme- 
 diately on quitting the school, and finally, in the type of 
 piety most prevalent among the serious, which may be 
 characterized as desiring to make sure of happiness here- 
 after, rather than striving after the highest attainments in 
 
15 
 
 holiness, and the most intimate communion with God now. 
 Here is the betrayal of an undervaluing of those distin- 
 guishing powers which God has conferred npon us, and 
 which may be trained to an indefinite extent ; and of a 
 disregard to those spiritual enjoyments of which man, 
 every man is ca[)able. 
 
 The root and origin of it all is, unquestionably, our 
 alienation from God. Having forsaken him as our portion, 
 his favor as our happiness, and his law as our standard, we 
 have fallen into many false notions and evil habits, which 
 go to confirm that alienation, by making us insensible to 
 the immensity of our loss. By departing from God, we 
 have sunk from the infinite to the finite, from the eternal 
 to the transient, from the elevated and pure and true, to 
 the low and vile and false. Tinsel and glare and baubles 
 liave come to content us wliom God made to be satisfied 
 with himself alone. Had man abode with God in the pos- 
 ture of a child, a pupil, a servant, a subject, then had God 
 kept in exercise all those powers which make man most 
 resemble God. Then had he taught us to despise all that 
 is trivial and superficial and low. As it is now, man has 
 fortified himself in this degraded state, that he may not be 
 discontented with it, nor made to rise higher. See how 
 strong his shield and fortresses are. There is indolence^ 
 which dreads the struggle to arouse the soul and keep it 
 awake and active in the pursuit of great objects ; pride, 
 which refuses to be judged by a standard that exposes our 
 defects ; ignorance which keeps us unaccpiainted with the- 
 powers we are thus neglecting to cultiv^ate and exercise. 
 And then we are creatures of fashion ; that is, we estimate 
 as valuable and important what the world estimates so ; 
 we have come even to despise that enthusiasm which is 
 the soul of greatness, as it gives the soul an infinitely more 
 worthy object of pursuit than self. And even very many 
 converted men have regarded piety as something else than 
 actual, ardent, active love to God and men. 
 
16 
 
 Let us then for a moment turn to the consequences of 
 this neglect. They may be summed up in these — mental 
 slavery, poverty, waste, misery, hurtfulness and irreparable 
 loss. There is no slavery so pitiable as that of the mind; 
 and no abolitionists should be so earnest as those who 
 would break these chains. There is the slavery of fash- 
 ionable life, which may be described as the pursuit of 
 excitement that costs the intellect nothing, and as obedi- 
 ence to a code of laws issued by an unseen, unknown, 
 and utter tyrant. Some are born into this circle, and the 
 more to be pitied ; some are attracted to it by its arrogant 
 pretensions to superiority, refinement and knowledge of 
 the world. With all these, it is a system of slavery where 
 no one can choose the right, and govern himself by sound 
 reason and an enlightened conscience, where none dares to 
 be serious or earnest, except about trifles. There is the 
 slavery of political life and of party, whether in church, 
 state, reform, or any where else. There is a humiliating 
 want of the manly exercise of a true independence. The 
 majority of our people have but exchanged masters. With 
 all their Fourth of July noise and flags and speeches and 
 toasts, there is an exceeding want both of ability, and de- 
 sire and courage to be free. To be able to be independent, 
 and to desire and dare to be independent, requires a true 
 knowledge of our individual worth and responsibility, a 
 true conquest of ourselves, and a full submission to God. 
 With all our boast of freedom and intelligence, there is a 
 vast deal of puppetism among us ; men pulled by wires 
 that others hold. And it is a worse feature of society even 
 than this, that when we undertake to be free, we bungle 
 and stumble and make such sad work, that in very shame 
 and disappointment, like the French people, we swing 
 from Louis XVL to Napoleon I. There is in the world 
 much unquietness and dissatisfaction with slavery. That 
 is well, so far as it goes, as a commencement, the very 
 faintest commencement of a healthful pulsation. We do 
 
17 
 
 not yet know how to be free ; for freedom requires a true 
 estimate of ourselves, a love of submission to all right- 
 ful authority, and a desire to use our powers for their le- 
 gitimate purposes. This ignorance and under-estimate of 
 ourselves moreover makes us poor. And nothing shows 
 mental poverty more clearly than the ordinary commerce 
 of conversation. Rich nations and rich merchants traffic 
 in costly, substantial, elegant, valuable merchandize. And 
 so do rich minds. But what a petty traffic do the chief 
 part of mankind keep up with one another. Suppose 
 the conversation of one day to be written down and 
 printed, and submitted to the inspection of angels, nay, 
 of men themselves ; what could they think of but 
 Vanity-fair? Tinselled ware, glass diamonds, -poisonous 
 stimulants, worn-out articles, thread-bare garments for 
 the spirit, yea, even the garbage of slander ; such is 
 the stock in trade of that vast busy throng in the city, 
 the village, the highway. Here and there is one who 
 knows the worth of speech, and enriches himself and 
 others by all his intercourse. There are only a few who 
 talk to any good purpose. There are few whose conver- 
 sation does not betray a total suspension of all their sub- 
 limer faculties ; who are not mere automatons to keep in 
 motion the common places of the day. Another conse- 
 quence of this neglect is that waste of mind which was 
 so well described here two years ago.* Men would not 
 waste their time nor their mental power, if they knew the 
 worth of both these treasures. But when they have made 
 outward and material things to constitute the chief good 
 which their souls pursue and cherish, to these outward 
 things they must give themselves, because the heart 
 will be where the treasure is ; and then we have the 
 rushing and scrambling for perishable riches and human 
 honors and ephemeral pleasures. The shrewd, calculating 
 faculty, the lower intellectual power, the selfish, the ani- 
 
 In an Address by Prof. Hitchcock. 
 
 3 
 
mal, are brought vigorously into exercise ; while all that 
 is truly elevated slumbers and dwindles, and finally per- 
 ishes of inanition. Here is thus, in the course of each 
 human life so spent, an incalculable, an irreparable loss. 
 No numbers can express it. What the man might have 
 been and done, and what he is and has done, are at an 
 immeasurable distance from each other. He, the commu- 
 nity, the universe have sufiered more than if thousands of 
 merely material worlds were annihilated. And there has 
 been too through the whole course, an amount of hurtful- 
 ness which we should not overlook. He has helped to 
 make others estimate themselves and worldly good and 
 true excellence just as falsely as he has done. And withal, 
 this ignorance and neglect is a source of much of the 
 misery of man. Is the mountain-eagle happy in a cage ? 
 He may eat and sleep there ; but his wings, where are 
 they, and of what use ; and where that strong eye made 
 to gaze upon the sun ? Alas, it grows dim in the darkness 
 of its prison. It has been a long experiment this — to be 
 happy without employing the whole mind, and without 
 exercising the heart in its purest and best sensibilities. It 
 has forever failed. If man was made for knowledge, for 
 truth, to scale its steep mountains and dig into its deep 
 mines, if he was made for God and his love, if for benevo- 
 lence, active, self-denying, laborious, constant, then you 
 cannot make hiin happy in substituting for this, the gath- 
 ering of dollars, the keeping, nor the expending them on 
 himself; then amusements, then ease and indolence, then 
 the world in any form, and selfishness at its best estate 
 cannot save him from misery. And it is painful to see 
 how many people are being educated to be miserable. 
 How hard men toil, how patient and persevering they are, 
 only to get a more honorable or fashionable or luxurious 
 kind of misery ! 
 
 And is there no remedy ? We believe there is, and 
 therefore we speak. 
 
19 
 
 That is, there are certain points toward vvliich we may 
 direct our course, with the reasonable hope of reaching a 
 higher position than we have yet attained. Tlie first is 
 that endlessly improvable matter : 
 
 Education. Every body feels that they have a right 
 to complain of it, and we must have our share, for our 
 hint may be useful somewhere. We say ; the faculties 
 ought all to be trained. These superior capacities of 
 which w^e have spoken, are mostly either entirely neglect- 
 ed or very superficially regarded in our systems of instruc- 
 tion and mental discipline. We remark for instance, this 
 radical defect, that whatever may be the subject of study, 
 the motives actuating the pupil are not generally attended 
 to with sufficient care. The motive or the reason for 
 doing any thing is that which constitutes the whole of 
 character. And when the heart of a pupil is actuated 
 only by the lower class of motives, every page he studies, 
 every step he advances under the influence of those mo- 
 tives, increases at once his intellectual strength and his 
 moral depravity. Imagine all the motives which may 
 actuate the human mind to be arranged in the order of 
 their excellence, making a scale somewhat in this wise. 
 Lowest of all is selfishness, or the desire to secure self- 
 gratification at the expense or neglect of others' happiness. 
 This is the essence of sin. Then there is a class that in 
 themselves have no moral character, only as they are con- 
 trolled by the benevolent or selfish principle. They are, 
 the desire of self-approbation — the love of approbation — 
 the love of knowledge — the love of achievement or suc- 
 cess — the love of power. Then come the holy motives 
 of — the desire to glorify God — the desire to please him — 
 the desire to make others happy and holy. It seems to 
 me that every parent and teacher ought to have an entire 
 familiarity \\n\X\ that scale of motives, a keen discernment 
 of the states of the mind in the exercise of each of them 
 respectively, an incessant and vigilant attention to motives 
 
20 
 
 as they come into operation at every step and stage of 
 study. Tiiis lies at the root of education for usefuhiess, 
 for true greatness and for happiness ; for every time you 
 indulge a motive, you strengthen it. And again, we mean 
 by educating all the faculties, something very different 
 from going through a certain set of studies chiefly in refer- 
 ence to the acquisition of facts or principles instead of the 
 thorough and harmonious cultivation of the individual 
 faculties and susceptibilities. The course of study ought 
 to be selected mainly in reference to that. The human 
 mind may be compared to a watch out of order, and edu- 
 cation to the process of repairing. No two watches are to 
 receive the same treatment. The particular difficulty, de- 
 fect, derangement, excess or deficiency of each one is to 
 be discovered, and the process of reparation directed there. 
 Now much of our educating is like a watchmaker taking 
 a hundred watches and setting them in a row, and first 
 applying a file to them all, and then a hammer and then a 
 blow-pipe and then a screw-driver, because files and ham- 
 mers and blow-pipes and screw-drivers are all to come in 
 somewhere in horology. In fact the nobler powers, the 
 better feelings and faculties need to be aroused, while the 
 animal and the ignoble must be constantly checked in the 
 large majority of the youthful minds. In fact, one of the 
 most striking features of Edwards's experience is, that with 
 all his elevation of spirit, he found a constant effort neces- 
 sary to keep his better powers in action. Let a few speci- 
 mens suffice. We suppose that every child could be made 
 to feel more or less sympathy with nature or the works of 
 God, There are germs of poetry in every human heart, 
 and every human soul can be made to love flowers and 
 stars and fields and woods, because they are all unmingled 
 beauty and untainted by sin, and friendly to self-knowledge, 
 to benevolence and purity and communion with God. 
 Let the cultivation of that feeling command the best ef- 
 forts of the first talents, while the germs of poetry and 
 
21 
 
 eloquence are thus cherished, and the habit of self-com- 
 munion is formed. The sublime and the beautiful in 
 matter and mind can be held before the youthful eye 
 under the discriminating remarks and the animated feel- 
 ings of the teacher until the love of beauty, the quick 
 appreciation of the true, the simple, the grand in nature, 
 in man and in God, together with the deep abhorrence of 
 deformity, defilement and meanness become fundamental 
 elements of the character. We would dwell upon the 
 formation in the youthful mind of a love of history and of 
 a discriminating judgment of character and events — a cor- 
 rect taste and judgment concerning literature, so necessary 
 now, — the formation of a due estimate of the value of 
 their own powers, and the importance of cultivating them — 
 the pure love of knowledge and of mental effort — the ad- 
 miration of God's attributes, and (we speak simply of 
 what every teacher should incessantly aim to accomplish 
 under the divine blessing) an ardent, childlike love of his 
 character — the admiration of the soul as it was manifested 
 in Christ's human nature, and as it will become in every 
 regenerated spirit — the deep sympathy of the heart for 
 man in his present position and prospects — the full com- 
 prehension of what we may do for his everlasting well- 
 being. 
 
 In addition to this positive course, we suggest the check- 
 ing false tendencies ; the correction of prejudices and 
 error which are early formed, and which exceedingly in- 
 jure the mind and heart ; the checking and chastening of 
 the exuberant imagination which early gives a wrong di- 
 rection to the whole character. 
 
 We would suggest another general view on the subject 
 of Education ; that it should aim to prepare the pupil for 
 real life ; to meet and mingle not with fairies and angels 
 and blue beards, but just such erring, feeble, prejudiced, 
 fickle, selfish, suftering people as fill the world and make 
 up society. Children are deceived by their imaginations, 
 
and, remain undeceived and untaught by their teachers, as 
 to the kind of the world they hve in, the kind of people 
 they are to mingle with, yes, and the kind of beings they 
 themselves are. The single habit of questioning in every 
 case of difficulty with another, whether I am not wrong, 
 is worth more than a pile of classic authors stowed in the 
 mind of a self -conceited, irritable scholar. True, much 
 must be learned by experience ; yet the teacher should 
 keep the real world in view in the whole course of train- 
 ing. To know how to treat every human being with 
 whom we have intercourse is not put down on college 
 catalogues ; but if I had a son, I should prefer to send him 
 a fifth year to a competent professor of that important and 
 attainable art. How much of human happiness depends 
 on conversation ! And conv^ersation is as truly an art as 
 writing or medical practice. Now we ask ; where is it 
 taught ? Education too should prepare the mind for the 
 world as a scene of temptation and probation. Education 
 should educate both sexes, but chiefly woman for home. 
 That is her empire. She is mainly responsible for its 
 prosperity, its peace, its moral riches, its order, its splendor. 
 Music has its place, its important place there, and is indis- 
 pensable to the highest governance of the domestic em- 
 pire. Let it be remembered however, that the tongue is 
 employed more hours than the piano ; and if she can 
 learn to play well on only one, let it be the former. Our 
 .views of education would embrace an anticipation that 
 the pupils are to be loyal subjects of Christ's kingdom, 
 members of his visible church and heirs of his glory, and 
 aim to qualify them for the highest stations in all these, of 
 which they may be capable. This impression must be 
 deepest in the teacher's heart. If it be not, he will fail 
 to educate aright. 
 
 Our second remedy is in Home Education. At home 
 the great work of forming the character is chiefly to be 
 done. And the world will continue to go wrong and be 
 
23 
 
 wrong, until the duties of the parental office are better 
 understood and more faithfully discharged. There the 
 finer social feelings, the delicate sense of propriety, the 
 respect for age, the submission to authority, the study of 
 mutual happiness, the attention to the lesser wants of 
 others, the constant anticipation of their changing necessi- 
 ties and feelings, the habit of fulfilling the duties of the 
 most important relations of life are all to be cherished. 
 
 Our last proposed remedy is the promoting religious 
 faith. There was never greatness of any kind without 
 some kind of faith. Skepticism is spiritual death. Its 
 brilliant intellect is the rotten-wood glow that scares and 
 amuses children. Heartlessness is not the glory of man. 
 To know so much as to believe nothing is not greatness, 
 but meanness. All poetry, all science, all philosophy, all 
 loveliness, require faith. And religious faith is the highest 
 form. It beholds and loves and trusts and fears God, a 
 Being of infinite greatness. The problems which it solves 
 are connected with his plans and purposes ; the hope 
 which it indulges is the inspiration of his truth. The 
 glories to which it aspires are both pure and eternal, and 
 so are its treasures, its friendships and its dwelling-place. 
 Its study is chiefly the mystery of Redemption. These 
 are the occupations of the intellect and the heart. Its 
 love is chiefly exercised on the infinite excellence of God, 
 Its hatred is concentrated on the odiousness of sin. Man 
 in the unestimated value of his soul, in his exposure to an 
 eternal evil and his capacity for an endless happiness, is 
 the object of its sympathy. Prayer is its highest employ- 
 ment. Reasoning with God, persuading God, and work- 
 ing in harmony with God, such is religious faith. Its 
 struggles arc with a depraved heart ; its aspirings are after 
 perfect holiness. The animosity of the believer is mainly 
 directed against the defects in his own character. For 
 other men he has charity, compassion, forbearance, sympa- 
 thy. Such is the true believer. There are no trifles in 
 
24 
 
 his life. "When he unbends, it is the bird of heaven gath- 
 ering strength for another and loftier flight. I do not say- 
 how many such behevers are now in the world. I say- 
 there are such ; there must be more, more by hundreds of 
 milhons, and when they come, there will be more real 
 greatness, more varied loveUness, more mental power, 
 more pure happiness, than the world has ever seen. World- 
 liness in all its forms is skepticism, and skepticism is 
 hollow, weak, poor. Faith in the great realities of the 
 revelation of God makes a man, a nation truly great and 
 truly lovely. I admit that there have never been many 
 periods of the revival of religious faith when its true influ- 
 ence was exhibited on a broad scale. Such a day however 
 was seen throughout Central Europe, when Martin Luther 
 began to be a true believer. His faith struck a light to 
 guide millions up from the damp, dark caverns of supersti- 
 tion into a lovely day of liberty and holy fellowship with 
 Christ, Such a day was seen when a baptism of the 
 Spirit came upon England, and its intellect put on the 
 loveliest and the loftiest forms it has ever assumed. It 
 has been well said that " no one can have shrines erected 
 to his memory in the hearts of the men of distant genera- 
 tions, unless his own heart was an altar on which daily 
 sacrifices of fervent devotion and magnanimous self-denial 
 "were ofl'ered to the only true object of human worship." 
 
 This has been too much overlooked, that an essential 
 element of greatness is self-restraint, self-renunciation ; 
 and that nothing secures self-renunciation but faith. 
 How can skepticism carry one out of himself, when its 
 very nature is the exaggeration of self? Man must be- 
 lieve in something, must love something, must pursue 
 some chief interest. And when that something is self, 
 and that interest is self-interest, there is skepticism. 
 Faith is its antagonist. It is the generous believing, con- 
 fiding in God as infinitely more real and excellent than 
 self, in God's glory as infinitely more worthy of pursuit 
 
25 
 
 than anything connected with self. Faith in the incar- 
 nation of the Son of God, in his substitution for man be- 
 fore the law, in his vicarious humiliation and suffering and 
 sacrifice, is the strongest power to lift man to the dignity 
 and purity and loveliness of self-renunciation. The cardi- 
 nal doctrine of the world in its selfishness and skepticism, 
 is this — suflering, obscurity, contempt of men are the 
 great evils of life. Hence as the paths of duty and glory 
 lie generally with us, as with Jesus, through shame and 
 sorrow, these are forsaken paths. Hence, as the greatest 
 stimulant to the human intellect is not found in the petty 
 objects connected with self, a large portion of every one's 
 power lies undeveloped and paralyzed under the deadening 
 influence of selfishness and skepticism. Hence, as selfish- 
 ness is out of harmony with truth, the soul must be kept 
 in the fetters of prejudice and falsehood and half-truths 
 and contradictions and absurdities. Ah ! here is the waste 
 of mind. It may occur to some that men without faith 
 have displayed the most entire self-renunciation in com- 
 mercial and military and scientific pursuits. We admit it, 
 and call your attention to two considerations. In the ma- 
 jority of cases, they would have acknowledged their zeal 
 to terminate on self, so that there was no self-renunciation. 
 And their very zeal for science and victory and wealth 
 was an imitation of faith which renounces a present sen- 
 sible interest for one unseen and distant. And if any one 
 should suppose that this form of selfishness and of skepti- 
 cism as to nobler ends has developed as much mental 
 power as faith, let it be suggested that selfishness may 
 arouse the active powers, and sustain their active exercise. 
 Mere activity however is not sufficient for the accomplish- 
 ment of the most important ends of life. Let us refer 
 to two eminent military men for confirmation. John 
 Churchill the Duke of Marlborough, under Q.ueen Anne, 
 who preserved the Protestant powers of Europe from the 
 grasp of Louis XIY. and the Jesuits, was a man of faith 
 4 
 
26 
 
 and prayer. His military talents were of the first order. 
 His name was a terror to the French armies. But there 
 were junctures in that terrible period when mere military 
 talent would have proved utterly insufficient. The Dutch 
 government was jealous, selfish and narrow ; the English 
 fiiction created by French gold was very powerful. And 
 had Marlborough's military zeal originated in selfishness, 
 or even loyalty, it could not have endured the fiery trials 
 to which his spirit was exposed. His presence and unre- 
 mitted labors had become indispensable to the preservation 
 of European liberty and the Protestant cause. Just at 
 that period his enemies succeeded in destroying his reputa- 
 tion at home, and in diminishing his military resources on 
 the continent. Nothing but his pure faith in God saved 
 him then from either turning traitor or abandoning his post. 
 But he labored still, just as if England appreciated and 
 Holland sustained him. He was one of the master spirits 
 of the Christian era ; and his character derived its strength 
 and beauty from his faith in God. The same seems to us 
 true of Washington, whose position and trials and conduct 
 were remarkably similar to Marlborough's. 
 
 We have placed this point last, because we would 
 have it left last upon the memory. The human powers 
 are wasted by unbelief. Human labor is lost by toiling 
 for perishing good. The richest endowments, the most 
 glorious capacities are withered and wasted under the. 
 chilling frosts of unbelief. Human society is full of 
 heartlessness and frivolity, because men do not believe 
 God's testimony, and so know not what to live for, rob- 
 bing the afi'ections of their legitimate objects, and cramp- 
 ing the soul to a sphere too narrow for its ethereal powers. 
 
 Look then from the elevated position of man's immortal 
 endowments to the world at large, and to the condition of 
 individual minds. Why is there not everywhere a rush 
 to the rescue of mind from its degradation ! Alas, a rush 
 will not save it. Patient, steady, humble, earnest work 
 
27 
 
 and prayer are alone availing. Count the millions of the 
 human race who know nothing of the powers that slum- 
 ber within them. They walk hke the inhabitants of a 
 gold region, careless and poor over a soil full of the most 
 precious materials. And will no one go to arouse them 
 to a sense and consciousness of their own dignity and im- 
 mortal value ? Yes, some are going, more are going ; and 
 we must continue steadily with growing zeal to aid them. 
 And at home we must prize more the individual soul, and 
 labor to bring it forth to the exercise of all those wonder- 
 ful powers which God has conferred upon it. We have 
 come together to-day to study anew the science of mental 
 mineralogy, to contemplate anew the hidden treasures of 
 the mind. And since we find that the roughest specimen 
 may contain the most precious qualities ; that no work is 
 so important as the working out and polishing that precious 
 material ; and that nothing can be more for the glory of 
 God, the good of our country and individual happiness, 
 let us give ourselves to this great work, by God's help. 
 We see that general education may be improved, that 
 domestic education is an indispensable instrument of ele- 
 vating mankind, and that the promotion of a living faith 
 is necessary for securing to God that revenue of glory 
 which is his due, and to man that blessedness for which 
 he was created. Our task is then before us; in God's 
 strength let us do it. And as we see that the institution 
 whose anniversary has convened us, is accomplishing all 
 these objects with growing success ; let us praise God, 
 take courage, and cherish the Mount Holyoke Seminary. 
 
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