Chapter VIII: Building for Immortality.1

So they built and prospered.--2 Chron. xiv. 7.

In the fairest of Italian cities stands the finest of terrestrial structures--a campanile or bell-tower, twenty-five feet square, two hundred and seventy-three feet high, built of white and colored marble in alternate blocks, covered with a royal luxuriance of sculpture framed in medallions, studded everywhere with the most beautiful statuary disposed in Gothic niches, and finished from base to battlement like a lady's cabinet inlaid with pearl and gold. It would seem as if nothing more perfect in symmetry, more exquisite in workmanship, or more magnificent in ornamentation, could possibly be achieved by human genius. Pure as a lily born of dew and sunshine, the approaching tourist sees it rising over the lofty roof of the Duomo, like the pillar of cloud upon the tabernacle; and when he enters the Piazza, and finds it standing apart in its majestic altitude, and looking down upon the vestal loveliness of the Tuscan Santa Maria, he can think only of the Angel of the Annunciation in the presence of the Blessed Virgin. Whoever has gazed upon its grand proportions, and studied the details of its exquisite execution, will feel no astonishment at being told that such a structure could not now be built in this country for less than fifty millions of our money; nor will he wonder that Jarvis, in his "Art Hints," has pronounced it "the noblest specimen of tower-architecture the world has to show;" that Charles the Fifth declared it was "fit to be inclosed with crystal, and exhibited only on holy-days;" and that the Florentines themselves, whenever they would characterize any thing as extremely beautiful, say it is "as fine as the Campanile."

Gentlemen, you have reared a nobler edifice! Nobler, not because more costly, for your pecuniary outlay is as nothing in the comparison. Nobler, not because the material is more precious, and the architecture more perfect; for what is a pile of brick to such a miracle in marble? or where is the American builder that would dream of competing with Giotto? Nobler, not because there is a larger and richer-toned bell in the gilded cupola, to summon the inmates to study and recitation, or to morning and evening worship; for the great bell of the Campanile is one of the grandest pieces of resonant metal ever cast; and its voice, though soft as flute-tones at eventide coming over the water, is rich and majestic as an angel's song. Far nobler, however, in its purpose and utility; for that wonder of Italian architecture is the product of Florentine pride and vanity in the days of a prosperous republic--a less massive but more elegant Tower of Babel, expressing the ambition of its builders; and though standing in the Cathedral Piazza, its chief conceivable objects are mere show and sound; while the end and aim of this edifice is the development of mind, the formation of character, the creation of a loftier intellectual manhood, the reproduction of so much of the lost image of God as may be evolved by the best media and methods of human education.

The excellence of your structure, then, consists mainly in this--that it is only a scaffold, with derricks, windlasses, and other apparatus and implements, for building something immeasurably more excellent. Here the thinking power is to be quickened, and the logical faculty is to be awakened and invigorated. This is to be effected, not so much by the knowledge acquired, as by the effort called out for its acquisition. The teacher is to measure his success, not by the number and variety of terms, rules, formulas and principles he has impressed upon the memory, but by the amount of mental power and independence he has imparted to his pupil. True, in educating the mind, knowledge of some sort must be acquired; but the thoroughness of the education depends no more upon the quantity of the acquisition, than the health of the guest upon the abundance of the banquet. The mental food, as well as the material, must be digested and assimilated. It follows that those exercises which require close and consecutive thinking, thorough analysis, clear discrimination and accurate definition, are best adapted to develop the higher faculties of the mind. Mathematics, metaphysics, dialectics and philology must form the granite basis of your building, sustaining the solid tiers of rich and varied marbles.

Then comes the aesthetic culture. First the substantial, afterward the ornamental--this is the natural order, to reverse which were to begin building the tower at the top. The very idea of the ornamental supposes something substantial to be ornamented. No man will attempt to polish the sponge, or paint a picture on the vacant air, or rear a stone cathedral on a sunset cloud. There is no lily-bloom without the sustaining stalk, nor magnolia grandiflora without the sturdy and stately tree. "Wood, hay, stubble," are not fit materials for jewelry; but "gold, silver, precious stones," may be wrought into a thousand forms of beauty, sparkling with myriad splendors. The solid marble superstructure resting upon its deep foundations of granite, firm as the seated hills, can scarcely be too finely finished or too sumptuously adorned. Upon a thorough mental culture sit gracefully, and quite at home, philosophy, history, poetry, eloquence, music, painting--all in literature and the arts that can refine the taste, refresh the heart, and lead the fancy captive. To the mind thus disciplined and adorned, a pleasant path is opened to the broadest and richest fields of intellectual inquiry, where it may range at will with the freedom of an angel's wing, charmed with beauties such as Eden never knew, thrilled with melodies such as the leaden ear of ignorance never heard, rejoicing in a fellowship of wisdom worthy of the enfranchised sons of God, and realizing the truth so finely expressed by the greatest of German poets:--

"Only through beauty's morning gate,
Canst thou to knowledge penetrate;
The mind, to face truth's higher glances,
Must swim some time in beauty's trances;
The heavenly harping of the muses,
Whose sweetest trembling through thee rings,
A higher life into thy soul infuses,
And wings it upward to the soul of things."

But is there not something still better, which ought to be an element in every process of human education? What is man? Merely an intellectual animal? Nay, but he has a spirit within him allied to angels and to God. The higher nature calls for culture no less than the lower. To the development and discipline of the rational and aesthetic faculties must be subjoined "the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Otherwise we educate only the inferior part of the man, and leave the superior to chance and the Devil. Make scholars of your children, but do not omit to make them Christians. Lead them to Parnassus, but let them go by the way of Calvary. Conduct them to Olympus, but let them carry the dew of Olivet upon their sandals. Make them drink deeply from the wells of human wisdom, but deny them not the living water whereof if one drink he shall never thirst again.

Why should a "wise master-builder" hesitate to connect religion with science and literature in the edification and adornment of the soul? Does not religion favor the most thorough mental discipline and contribute to the harmonious development of all the spiritual powers? Does not Christianity stimulate the mind to struggle against difficulties, ennoble the struggle by investing it with the dignity of a duty, and render the duty delightful by the hope of a heavenly reward? "Knowledge is power;" but what knowledge is so mighty as that which Christ brought from the bosom of the Father? Poetry and philosophy have their charms; but what poetry is like that of the Holy Spirit, and what philosophy like that of redeeming love? God's holy evangel enlarges and strengthens the mind by bringing it into contact with the sublimest truths, and making it familiar with the profoundest mysteries. It rectifies our perverted reason, corrects our erroneous estimates, silences the imperious clamour of the passions, and removes the stern embargo which the corrupt heart lays upon the aspiring intellect. It sings us the sweetest songs, preaches to us the purest morality, and presents for our imitation the noblest examples of beneficence and self-denial. Under its blessed influence the soul expands to grasp the thought of God and receive the infinite riches of his love.

And shall we wrong our sons and daughters by withholding from them this noblest agency of the higher mental and spiritual culture--

"The fountain-light of all our day,
The master-light of all our seeing"--

and turn them over, with all their instinctive yearnings after the true, the good, the pure, the divine, to the blind guidance of a sceptical sciolism, and the bewildering vagaries of a rationalistic infidelity? "No," to use the language of the late Canon Melville, "we will not yield the culture of the understanding to earthly husbandmen; there are heavenly ministers who water it with a choicer dew, and pour upon it the beams of a brighter sun, and prune its branches with a kinder and more skilful hand. We will not give up the reason to stand always as a priestess at the altars of human philosophy; she hath a more majestic temple to tread, and more beautiful robes to walk in, and incense rarer and more fragrant to offer in golden censers. She does well when boldly exploring God's visible works; she does better when she submits to spiritual teaching, and sits with Mary at the Saviour's feet."

Gentlemen, it is impossible to overstate the importance of religious culture in the work of education. Every interest of time and eternity urges it upon your attention. Your children are accountable and immortal creatures. "Give them divine truth," says Channing, "and you give them more than gems and gold; give them Christian principles, and you give them more than thrones and diadems; imbue their hearts with a love of virtue, and you enrich them more than by laying worlds at their feet." Your doctrine may distil as the dew upon the grass, and as the small rain upon the tender herb; but in some future emergency of life, the silent influence shall assert itself in a might more irresistible than the stormy elements when they go forth to the battles of God. If the work be faithfully done, the impression produced shall not be that of the sea-fowl on the sand, effaced by the first wave of the rising tide; but the enduring grooves cut by the chariot-wheels of the King of Trembling as he rides through the mountain ranges, and the footprints of his fiery steeds left deep in the everlasting rocks.

Forward, then, with your noble endeavor! You are building for eternity. You are rearing temples of living stones which shall survive all the changes and chances of earth and time, and look sublimely down upon the world's catastrophe. Up! up with your immortal campanile! It is compacted of imperishable gems, cemented with gold from the mines of God. No marble sculpture may adorn its niches and cornices; but angel forms shall walk its battlements in robes of living glory. No hollow metal may swing in its vaulted _loggie_, sending sweet echoes over the distant hills, and charming the song-birds to silence along the flowery Val d'Arno; but richer and holier melodies, ringing out from its heavenly altitudes, shall mingle with the music of the spheres, and swell the many-voiced harmony of the City of God!

[1] Preached at the opening of a new college edifice, 1859.