Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-08-04
M0rtester 4aiIg Spy
THE DAILY SPY.
Right Education the safety of the Ma
ton.
4 Sermon deliUered Sabbath morning, July
I'd, 1868, at Salem Street Church.
BY MERRILL RICHARDso

D.
Oh, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, behold,
will lay thy stones with fair colOrs and thy found
atons with sapphiresi all thy children shall be
taught Of the Lord in righteousness shalt thou be
established
So good thing is it, and SO great, that
nation rent by faction, should have peace,
that the prophet sets it forth under the figure
of Il temple, whose foundations were sap
phires, whose walls were Respondent with
the beauties of cOlors, and whose doors and
windows shOne with the briliancy of all pre-.
cOus stones. As rest for the weary, as health
for the sick, us light for hose cropping in
darkness, and the opening of the prison doors
those in bonds, such was peace to Il nation,
storm.tossed on the pillows of strife An.
archy was ugly Order was beautiful. The
one was the demon of the pit; the other was
an angel from heaven.
The prophet saw another thing, viz: that
the time would come, when that temple of
precious stones, loould be the emblem of Il
great nation; and because the time would
come when each generation should be taught
of the Lord, and thus righteousness be finally
established. Then there should be peace and
prosperity. Its foundation would be laid in
the character of the citizens.
Subject Right education the only found.
0iion Of O nations WeU being. Tossed by the
tempest Of war; it is natural to look back for
safety from any source. The question comes
Have we not SO broadened the foundations
of freedom, as to endanger the superstruc-
ture? At home, as abroad, men have de-
clared democracy a failure. Good enough
for a calm--it cannot outride the storm. Not
a few wise men are doubling if our regulatiue
forces are proportional to the propulsive.
Mexico has struck her cOlOrS to monarchy.
Can we survive? When men who make laws,
rush madly to break them what, stronger
than spiders web, holds the allegiance of
the nation?
One part of this subject, and the most vi.
tai, belongs to the pulpit to discuss, viz the
right education of all the people. What a
people are, decides what their government
shall be. And what people are is decided by
their education, using the term in its broad
est sense. First, glance at its power. How
imperative it is over every tribe and nation!
Had we at birth, and onward for twenty-five
years been subjected to ali influences, domes-
tic and social, Of climate, overnment and re-
ligion of any other people, from the poles to
the equator, ne should have been like them
far more than like our present selves. The
momentum of race will go far. But of all the
children born this year in every land, ninety
nine out Of a hundred-yes, nine hundred and
ninety -nine out OF Il thousand, are as sure to
be, in belief and worship, in what they love
or late, III right ana wrong, i'll aim, in char
0ct6r, what those around them are, as they
are to wear the same style of dress, or live
upon the same food! In the more ignorant
nations there will be no exceptions.
Almost as true is it that, let the child rem of
all lands change places--ours trained IN Ihi-
bet and theirs in Japan, those of Spain in Chi
ma, and theirs in Patagonia, and 50 on-and IN
one generation the children OF each will be-
come, not what their real but what their
adapted parents and society are! Not birth
but education decides the real Jew or the
Gentle, the christian or the idOlatOr, the lover
of liberty or the devotee of power the coarse
or the refined. And even in the most enlight-
ened nations how sure are children to adopt
the belief, Protestant or Catholic, with which
they are trained.
Another fact. The higher people are
raised in the scale Of being the more effort is
required to advance or to hold them to what
is already gained. To rise is difficult to de-
Scend is easy is an old proverb. 1t costs
nothing to rear generation according to the
standard Of most tribes; more than brutes to
make them brutes. They grow to it as natu-
rally as vegetable. The animal, lion or
lamb, is sure of meeting its end. Instinct
will do the work. Not so child or genera
ton of children. Their animal nature will
defeat the mental and moral development
without early and most persistent effort at cul-
ture and training. The sons and daughters of
princes, of the best educated families, with
out such effort will gravitate to earth and
sense. Many do in spite of effort. Not for
single year can educational influences cease
without the loss Of many years! 1t takes CEN
turies to elevate the savage to civilized-the
pagan to christian! third of one century is
enough to reverse the process. When the
eaIly churches began to relax their efforts to
advance they began to go back. Under weak
or wicked rulers Kingdoms have often lost in
ten years what they had gained in fifty or
hundred years. The Jews did. SO have
England and France. Close all our schools
and churches, cease to use all our means of
instruction, restraint, encouragement, and
control, for one generation, and Massachu-
sets could not recover her position In a hum
bred years, should she ever have the will to
make the attempt! You can raise HottentotS
and Camanches without any expenditure, but
how worthless the article? And the expense
is small to rear the masses of Europe to what
is expected. But to make each generation of
free state competent to manage the trust to
be committed to it, manufactures, banks, com
merce, trade, all the arts and sciences, the
schools and seminaries, the economical, po-
litcal, and religious interests, all identified
with its ellbeing, this is lc01k, costly, never
Ceasing, and as glorious as 1t is great In
most nations only the few are educated. Those
decide all questions OF government and reli-
gion. We have opened highway for all, a
fair chance of success for every kind and or
der of talent. And our leading men in all de.
partments of life are continually rising from
the ranks. To hold by our theory, to keep
good the practice, the effort must not be re-
Taxed! And, such is the wise economy of
God, our own growth and blesSedness lie in
it! In thus magnifying the power OF educa-
ton in its broadcast sense l derogate nothing
from the power of God. His work iscreation;
ours to use and direct. His to work c1tb us,
and, as touching character and national desti-
ny, never lcitltom us. His power in creating
is infinitely beyond ours; but what countless
treasures of mind and of soul, rs OF gold and
precious stones, lie buried and useless, be-
cause no human agency brings them to light.
In blank ignorance, as created, the races of
men would trample, brute-iike, upon all the
resources of wealth and beauty, Of comfort
and Joy, provided by Omnipotence
All created things are to Us just what our
insight makes them; and what convenience
have we, or comfort, or art what of all the
billions of productive industry, that is not the
result of the minds activity amid the works of
the wonder working God? And we may go
farther and say, without some activity of mind
no God, no truth, or revelation Of God could
ever be ours. We must find what truth is, by
whatever voice III spoken. God could make
no revelation only tO minds that cOuld dis