Leonard shaded his face with his hand.
"Hence," continued the Parson, benignantly—"hence, so far from considering that we do all that is needful to accomplish ourselves as men, when we cultivate only the intellect, we should remember that we thereby continually increase the range of our desires, and, therefore, of our temptations; and we should endeavor, simultaneously, to cultivate both those affections of the heart, which prove the ignorant to be God's children no less than the wise, and those moral qualities which have made men great and good when reading and writing were scarcely known—to wit, patience and fortitude under poverty and distress; humility and beneficence amidst grandeur and wealth: and, in counteraction to that egotism, which all superiority, mental or worldly, is apt to inspire, Justice, the father of all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity, which is their loving mother. Thus accompanied, knowledge, indeed, becomes the magnificent crown of humanity—not the imperious despot, but the checked and tempered sovereign of the soul."
The Parson paused, and Leonard, coming near him, timidly took his hand, with a child's affectionate and grateful impulse.
Riccabocca.—"And if, Leonard, you are not satisfied with our Parson's excellent definitions, you have only to read what Lord Bacon himself has said upon the true ends of knowledge, to comprehend at once how angry the poor great man, whom Mr. Dale treats so harshly, would have been with those who have stinted his elaborate distinctions and provident cautions, into that, coxcombical little aphorism, and then misconstrued all he designed to prove in favor of the commandant, and authority of learning. For," added the sage, looking up as a man does when he is tasking his memory, "I think it is thus that, after saying the greatest error of all is the mistaking or misplacing the end of knowledge, and denouncing the various objects for which it is vulgarly sought;—I think it is thus that he proceeds.... 'Knowledge is not a shop for profit or sale, but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate.'"[9]
Parson (remorsefully.)—"Are those Lord Bacon's words? I am very sorry I spoke so uncharitably of his life. I must examine it again. I may find excuses for it now, that I could not when I first formed my judgment. I was then a raw lad at Oxford. But I see, Leonard, there is still something on your mind."
Leonard.—"It is true, sir. I would but ask whether it is not by knowledge that we arrive at the qualities and virtues you so well describe, but which you seem to consider as coming to us through channels apart from knowledge?"
Parson.—"If you mean by the word knowledge something very different from what you express in your essay—and which those contending for mental instruction, irrespective of religion and ethics, appear also to convey by the word—you are right;—but, remember, we have already agreed that by the word knowledge we mean culture purely intellectual."
Leonard.—"That is true—we so understood it."
Parson.—"Thus, when this great Lord Bacon erred, you may say that he erred from want of knowledge—the knowledge that moralists and preachers would convey. But Lord Bacon had read all that moralists and preachers could say on such matters; and he certainly did not err from want of intellectual cultivation. Let me here, my child, invite you to observe, that He who knew most of our human hearts and our immortal destinies, did not insist on this intellectual culture as essential to the virtues that form our well-being here, and conduce to our salvation hereafter. Had it been essential, the All-wise One would not have selected humble fishermen for the teachers of his doctrine, instead of culling his disciples from Roman Portico, or Athenian Academy. And this, which distinguishes so remarkably the Gospel from the ethics of heathen philosophy, wherein knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue, is a proof how slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of mankind, when compared with the Saviour's; for hard, indeed, would it be to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption; since, in this state of ordeal, requiring active duties, very few, in any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent heaven as a college for the learned. Therefore the rules of the Celestial Legislator are rendered clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest."
Riccabocca.—"And that which Plato and Zeno, Pythagoras and Socrates, could not do, was done by men whose ignorance would have been a by-word in the schools of the Greek. The gods of the vulgar were dethroned; the face of the world was changed! This thought may make us allow, indeed, that there are agencies more powerful than mere knowledge, and ask, after all, what is the mission which knowledge should achieve?"