he bore without abuse the grand old name of gentleman.” That is a noble thing for any man or boy to have said of him; and there is not one among you who does not desire always to be able to claim that name as his own.
But, wherever we go in the world, how many men there are who claim it and yet debase it by ignoble use! They help to spread the notion that a man may be a man of low morality and still a gentleman; that his gentlemanliness may be a mere varnish of culture and manners, a thin veneering having underneath it only meanness, or coarseness, or corruption; and that, notwithstanding this, he may still claim to be called a gentleman. Those who spread such doctrines are debasing the moral currency of English life. And it should be the mission of schools like this, and of those who grow up in them, to pour upon all such persons the contempt which they deserve, and to restore the currency of common life to something of Christian purity.
Remembering, then, how sensitive the soul is, and how easily by example, or conduct, or fashion it may be so perverted as to lose its clear vision and higher aims, its pure tastes and ennobling emotions, we have to make it our ambition and endeavour that our life may be kept free from such debasement.
But, if we are to succeed in this, we must make it our daily prayer that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ will enlighten the eyes of our understanding, and give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge and love of Him.
XVII. A NEW HEART.
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”—Ezekiel xxxvi. 26.
In the beautiful and suggestive dream of Solomon, which is recorded in the third chapter of the First Book of Kings, God appears to him, saying, “Ask what I shall give thee”; and Solomon’s answer is, “O Lord, I am but a child set over this great people, give me, I pray Thee, a hearing heart.” And God said to him, “Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, nor riches; behold, I have done according to thy words. I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, and I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour.” And the record of this vision was clearly meant to indicate that the supreme gift of the wisest of men was the
hearing or understanding heart. On the other hand, there is nothing against which our Lord in the Gospels utters stronger warnings than that dulness or deadness of spirit which is described as having eyes that see not, and ears that are dull of hearing, and hearts that do not understand. And in illustration of this we read how, while the crowds throng or press upon Jesus, it is the stricken woman who, with soul sensitive to His influence, feels the virtue come out of Him though she only touches the hem of His garment.
Thus we are warned to beware lest that should come upon us which was the ruin of the Jews, dulness or deadness of spiritual faculty; and we are exhorted to pray for and to cherish the hearing heart, the soul that sees and feels spiritual influences, and is sensitive to every high call. And if your soul is thus open and receptive, it is marvellous how full the world becomes to you of Divine voices. They come upon you unexpected, unsought, sending through your heart some illuminating flash of surprise, so that you wonder at your previous
dulness; they strike you with the sudden shock of some new knowledge or insight, and make you feel, as never before, the true nature of your daily conduct or your duty and your relation to other men; or they come as the unresting presence of some new thought, which, once roused, haunts and troubles you with questions which you cannot answer, or feelings which you cannot get rid of.