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    Jedge but makes them worse , more obvious , more injurious , less likely to be rectified . No , there is no knowledge , there is no cultivation , however high , however minute , however extensive , which the Christian minister may not use for the benefit of his fellowcreatures , and there is no guarantee for a proper use of knowledge , whether it be less or greater , but a good and pious heart .

    -BTirtn-th e ^ re ^ premely needed in the Christian minister . How without them can he expose the sophistries of unbelievers , defend the bulwarks of the Christian faith , expound the gospel , so as to secure it a reception into cultivated minds ? If religion is to modify the age , it must appear equal , nay superior to the spirit of the age , and one reason of the actual deficiency of its influence is found in the fact , that the exposition of it has been too much intrusted to men

    of sordid hearts or inferior minds . In each succeeding generation , religion is mainly that which are those who expound its truths . It is seen and felt rather in the lives of its ministers , than in the pages of its history ; rather in the spirit of the church , than the spirit of Christ . How important , then , that ministers of the gospel should be men able to take their stand beside the highest

    and noblest of the race , should utter a voice of power and attractiveness equal to the voice of philosophy , and superior to every spirit-that would debase or mislead the mind . There is needed now , if ever , not merely a pure and benevolent heart , but a largeness and liberality of soul , a freedom and power of mind , a loftiness , a nobility of character . What is the parent of these virtues ? —education .

    But not every kind of education . Not that education which keeps from the eye some of the most valuable departments of knowledge , merely because of modern origin ; not that which consists to a great extent in an attempt to uphold all but obsolete prejudices , to engender and feed party animosities , sectarian and

    antisocial distinctions ; and preeminently not that , which requires a student to subscribe himself slave or hypocrite before he commences his studies , which exacts from him an assent to points he has never investigated , and which , when he does investigate , he will find fraught with ambiguity , not to say contradictions ; no , but that kind of education which allows and fosters the freest

    exercise of the faculties , which bids the student inquire for himself , think for himself , determine for himself , which in theology makes the records of divine truth , not the formularies of human invention , the test of sound doctrine , which holds out no bribes , offers no threat to influence the decision of the mind , but says , ' love truth , seek truth , follow truth , avow truth , disregarding every minor consideration , and intent only on learning and declaring what is God ' s will , and what man ' s duty . ' I am not without a fear , that , in one point at least , our notions in regard to ministerial education , as well as to general education , are seriously deficient .

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    166 THE TRUTH TELLER .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 1, 1833, page 166, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2615/page/6/