It is accordingly obvious, that in order to obtain its lasting and most prizable advantages, the pursuit of knowledge must be entered on and followed as a _duty_. A man must esteem his personal culture as the noblest end of his existence, and accept his responsibility in regard to it as the most paramount of obligations. To this one pre-eminent aim all other aims and aspirings must be held as inconsiderable and subordinate. Let him know, and lay earnestly to heart, that all his efforts at cultivation are to be everlasting in their results--fruitful for ever in blessed consequences to himself and to the world, or otherwise miserably and perpetually abortive, according to the character and spirit of his activity. All learning and experience have an intimate and natural respect to the progressive perfection of the human soul. The original idea of a man--what he individually ought to _be_ and _do_--that is the basis whereon he is to found and build up his entire being. He must therefore prosecute knowledge with a reverent and religious earnestness, strive diligently to comprehend the relations in which he stands to God and his fellow-men, and sedulously endeavour to fulfil his true and peculiar destination, which is, to make his temporal existence correspondent with the inner laws of his own soul, and to leave behind it in the spiritual world an imperishable and eternal consequence. This view of the intrinsic worth and significance of knowledge must be admitted to be far more exalting and salutary to the mind than any which has reference exclusively or principally to its agency in simply secular affairs. It leads a man inevitably to respect the integrity and rightful exercise of his capacities, by discountenancing all employment of them which might tend in anyway to invalidate or impair the natural supremacy of the moral sentiment. Considered as the power whereby he may cultivate and enlarge his being, knowledge is invested with a lofty and perennial momentousness, which cannot, and may not, be disregarded without derogation to our highest interests as human and spiritual intelligences. It is indeed a revelation, in all its manifold departments, of that vital and sustaining element of things which is designated Truth, and whereon every effort that can reasonably be expected to be lastingly successful is most intimately dependent. As man liveth not by bread alone, but by every gracious word that proceedeth from the mouth of God, by every just and everlasting law which He has established for the guidance and edification of mankind, so assuredly is it of primary concern to men to be qualified to interpret those sublime utterances, and to apprehend their import and significancy, in relation to the aims and hopes of life. This is the great and inestimable excellency of knowledge, that it acquaints us with something of the reality and nature of the mysterious frame of things wherein we live, and are necessitated constantly to work,