The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-04 00:00:00

those who are grander and better than you, without fear ;

distinct from fear." Ehrfurt—

•" The soulof all religion

that ever has been among men or ever will be." And he
goes into practicality. He practically distinguishes the
kinds of religion that are in the world, and he makes out
three reverences. The boys are all trained to go through
certain gesticulations, to lay their hands on their breast
and look up to heaven, and they give their three reverences.
The first and simplest is that of reverence for what is

above us. It is the soul of the Pagan religion ; there is
nothing better in man than that. Then there is reverence
for what is around us—reverence for our equals, and to
which he attributes an immense power in the culture of

man. The third is reverence for what is beneath us—to

learn to recognise in pain, sorrow, and contradiction, even
in those things, odious as they are to flesh and blood—to
learn that there lies in this a priceless blessing. And ha
defines that as being the soul of the Christian religion—the

highest of all religions—a height, as Gothe says; and that
is very true, even to the letter, as I consider—a height to
which the human species was fated and enabled to attain,
and from which, having once attained it, it can never re-
trograde. It cannot descend down below that permanently,
Gothe's idea is. Often one thinks it was good to have a
faith of that kind—that always, even in the most de-
graded, sunken, and unbelieving times, he calculates there

will be found some few souls who will recognise what that

meant ; and that the world, having once received it, there
is no fear of its retrograding. He goes on then to tell us
the way in which they seek to teach boys, in the sciences
particularly, whatever the boy is fit for. Wilhelm left his
own boy there, expecting they would make him a Master
of Arts, or something of that kind ; and when he came

back for him he saw a thundering cloud of dust coming

over the plain, of which he could make nothing. It turned
out to be a tempest of wild horses, managed by young lads
who had a turn for hunting with their grooms. His own
son was among them, and he found that the breaking of
colts was the thing he was most suited for. (Laughter.)
This' is what GUthe calls art, which I should not make

clear to you by any definition unless it is clear already. (A

laugh.) I would not attempt to define it as music, painting,

and poetry, and so on ; it is in quite a higher sense than the
common one, and in which, I am afraid, most of our pain-
ters, poets, and music men would not pass muster. (A
laugh.) He considers that the highest pitch to which
human culture can go ; and he watches with great industry
how it is to be brought about with men who have a turn
for it. Very wise and beautiful it is. It gives one an idea
that something greatly better is possible for a man in the

world. I confess it seems to me it is a shadow of what

will come, unless the world is to come to a conclusion that

is perfectly frightful ; some kind of scheme of education

like that, presided Ivor by the wisest and most sacred men
that can be got in the world, and watching from a dis-
tance—a training in practicality at every turn ;no speech
in it except speech that is to be followed by action, for
that ought to be the rule as nearly as possible among
them. For rarely should men speak at all unless it is to
say that thing that is to be done ; and let him go and
do his part in it, and say no more about it. I should
say there is nothing in the world you can conceive so diffi-
cult, prima fade, as that of getting a set of men, gathered
together—rough, rude, and ignorant people. Gather
them together, promise them a shilling a day ; rank them
up, give them very severe and sharp drill, and by bullying
and drill—for the word drill seems as if it meant the treat-
ment that would force them to learn—they learn what it
is necessary to learn ; and there is the man, a piece of an
animated machine, a wonder of wonders to look at. He
will go and obey one man, and walk into the cannon's
mouth for him, and do anything whatever that is com-
manded of him by his general officer. And I believe all
manner of things in this way could be done if there were
anything like the same attention bestowed. Very many
things could be regimented and organized into the mute
system :of education that Gothe evidently adumbrates
there. But I believe, when people look into it, it will be
found that they will not be very long in trying to make
some efforts in that direction ; for the saving of human
labour, and the avoidance of human misery, would be un-
accountable if it were set about and begun even in part.
Alas! it is painful to think how very far away it is - any
fulfilment of such things; for I need not hide from you
young gentlemen—and that is one of the last things I am
going to tell you—that you have got into a very troublous
epoch of the world; and I don't think you will find it im-
prove the footing you have, though you have many ad-
vantages which we had not. You have careers open to
you, by public examinations and so on, which is a thing
much to be approved, and which we hope to see perfected
more and more. All that was entirely unknown in my
time, and you have many things to recognize as advan-
tages. But you will find the ways of the world more
anarchical than ever, I think. As far as I have noticed,
revolution has come upon us. We have got into the age
of revolutions. All kinds of things are coming to be sub-
jected to fire, as it were ; hotter and hotter the wind rises
around everything. Curious to say, now in Oxford and
other places that used to seem to lie at anchor in the stream
of time, regardless of all changes, they are getting into the
highest humour of mutation, and all sorts of new ideas aro
getting afloat. It is evident that whatever is not made of
asbestos will have to be burnt in this world. It willnot stand
the heat it is getting exposed to. And in saying that, it
is but saying in other words that we are in an epoch of
anarchy—anarchy plus the constable. (Laughter.) There
is nobody that picks one's pocket without some policeman
being ready to take him up. (Renewed laughter.) But in
every other thing he is the son, not of Cosmos, but of
Chaos. He is a disobedient, and reckless, and altogether a
waste kind of object—a commonplace man in these epochs;
and the wiser kind of man-the select, of whom I hope you
will be part—has more and more a set time to it to look
forward, and will require to move with double wisdom ;
and will find, in short, that the crooked things that he has
to pull straight in his own life for round about, wherever
he may be, are manifold, and will task all his strength
wherever he may go. But why should I complain of that
either ?—for that is the thing a man is born to in all epochs.
He is born to expend every particle of strength that God
Almighty has given him in doing the work he finds he is fit
for—to stand it out to the last breath of life, and do his
best. We are called upon to do that ; and the reward we
all get—which we are perfectly sure of if we have merited it
is that we have got the work done, or at least that we have
tried to do the work ; for that is a great blessing in itself ;
and I should say there is not very much more reward than
that going on in this world. If the man gets meat and
clothes, what matters it whether he have £lO,OOO or
£10,000,000, or £7O a year. He can get meat and clothes
for that ; and he will find very little difference intrinsically
if he is a wise man. I warmly second the advice of the
wisest of men-" Don't bo ambitious ; don't be at all too
desirous of success ;be loyal and modest." Cut down the
proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they
be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than
the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all
the suffrages that are on the planet just now. (Loud and
prolonged cheers.) Finally, gentlemen, I have one ad-
vice to give you, which is practically of very great im-
portance, though a very humble one. I have no doubt
you will have among you people ardently bent to con-
sider life cheap, for the purpose of getting forward in
what they are aiming at of high ; and you are to consider
throughout, much more than is done at present, that health
is a thing to be attended to continually —that you are
to regard that as the very highest of all temporal things
for you. (Applause.) There is no kind of achievement
you could make in the world that is equal to perfect health.
What are nuggets and millions ? The French financier
said, "Alas why is there no sleep to be sold ?" Sleep was
not in the market at any quotation. (Laughter and ap-
plause.) It is a curious thing that I remarked long ago,
and often turned in my head, that the old word for "holy"
in the German language heilig—also means "healthy."
And so Ileilbronn means " holy well," or " healthy-well."
We have in the Scotch "hale ;" and, I suppose, our English
word " whole"—with a " w" all of one piece, without any
whole in it—is the same word. I find that you could not
get any better definition of what "holy" really is than
"healthy"—" completely healthy." Mens sana in corpore
sano. (Applause.) A man with his intellect a clear, plain,
geometric mirror, brilliantly sensitive of all objects and
imprCssions around it, and imagining all things in their
correct preportions—not twisted up into convex or con-
cave, and distorting everything, so that he cannot see the
truth of the matter without endless groping and manipu-
lation—healthy, clear, and free, and all round about him.
We never can attain that at all. In fact, the operations
we have got into aro destructive of it. You cannot, if you
are going into any decisive intellectual operation—if you
are going to write a book—at least, I never could—without
getting decidedly made ill by it, and really you must if it is
your business—and you must follow out what you are at—
and it sometimes is at the expense of health. Only re-
member at all times to get back as fast as possible out of it
into health, and regard the real equilibrium as the centre
of things. You should always look at the heilig, which
means holy, and holy moans healthy. Well, that old
etymology—what a lesson it is against certain gloomy
austere, aesthetic people, that have gone about as if this
world were all a dismal prison-house. •It has, indeed,
got all the ugly things in it that I kayo boon alludingto ;