A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of FriendsClarkson, Thomas
Religion
A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends
Clarkson, Thomas
Society of Friends
When we consider that men have all the same moral nature, we wonder, at
the first sight, at the great difference of conduct which they exhibit
upon earth. But when we consider the power of education upon the mind,
we seem to lose our surprize. If men in all countries were educated
alike, we should find a greater resemblance in their character. It is,
in short, education, which makes the man. And as education appears to me
to be of so much importance in life, I shall make it the subject of this
and the succeeding chapter.
All education should have two objects in view, the opening of the
understanding and the improvement of the heart. Of the two, the latter
is most important. There cannot be a question, whether the person of the
most desirable character be the virtuous or the learned man. Without
virtue knowledge loses half its value. Wisdom, without virtue, may be
said to be merely political; and such wisdom, whenever it belongs to a
man, is little better than the cunning or craftiness of a fox. A man of
a cultivated mind, without an unshaken love of virtue, is but a dwarf of
a man. His food has done him no good, as it has not contributed to his
growth. And it would have been better, for the honour of literature, if
he had never been educated at all. The talents of man, indeed,
considering him as a moral being, ought always to be subservient to
religion. "All philosophy, says the learned Cudworth, to a wise man, to
a truly sanctified mind, as he in Plutarch speaketh, is but matter for
divinity to work upon. Religion is the queen of all those inward
endowments of the soul: and all pure natural knowledge, all virgin and
undeflowered arts and sciences, are her handmaids, that rise up and call
her blessed."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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