"He may indeed," said the Doctor; "with deep concern I allow it. I will go further. The pride of learning, when not subdued by religion, may help to extinguish that spark. Reason has been too much decried by one party and too much deified by the other. The difference between reason and revelation seems to be the same as between the eye and the light; the one is the organ of vision, the other the source of illumination." "Take notice, Stanley," observed Mr. Tyrrel, "that if I can help it, I'll never attend your accomplished clergyman." "I have not yet completed the circle of his accomplishments," said Mr. Stanley, smiling; "besides what we call book learning, there is another species of knowledge in which some truly good men are sadly deficient: I mean an acquaintance with human nature. The knowledge of the world, and of him who made it; the study of the heart of man, and of him who has the hearts of all men in his hand, enable a minister to excel in the art of instruction; one kind of knowledge reflecting light upon the other. The knowledge of mankind, then, I may venture to assert, is, next to religion, one of the first requisites of a preacher; and I can not help ascribing the little success which has sometimes attended the ministry of even worthy men, to their want of this grand ingredient. It will diminish the use they might make of the great doctrines of our religion, if they are ignorant of the various modifications of the human character to which those doctrines are to be addressed. "As no man ever made a true poet without this talent, one may venture to say that few without it have ever made eminent preachers. Destitute of this, the most elaborate addresses will be only random shot, which, if they hit, will be more owing to chance than to skill. Without this knowledge, warmed by Christian affection, guided by Christian judgment, and tempered with Christian meekness, a clergyman will not be able in the pulpit to accommodate himself to the various wants of his hearers; without this knowledge, in his private spiritual visits he will resemble those empirics in medicine who have but one method of treatment for all diseases, and who apply indiscriminately the same pill and the same drop to the various distempers of all ages, sexes, and constitutions. This spirit of accommodation does not consist in falsifying, or abridging, or softening, or disguising any truth; but in applying truth in every form, communicating it in every direction, and diverting it into every channel. Some good men seem sadly to forget that precept--_making a difference_--for they act as if all characters were exactly alike." "You talk," said Mr. Tyrrel, "as if you would wish clergymen to depart from the singleness of truth, and preach two gospels."