I have already remarked, that we expect more from instruction, than
mere instruction can produce: for, instead of preparing young
people to encounter the evils of life with dignity, and to acquire
wisdom and virtue by the exercise of their own faculties, precepts
are heaped upon precepts, and blind obedience required, when
conviction should be brought home to reason.
Suppose, for instance, that a young person in the first ardour of
friendship deifies the beloved object--what harm can arise from
this mistaken enthusiastic attachment? Perhaps it is necessary for
virtue first to appear in a human form to impress youthful hearts;
the ideal model, which a more matured and exalted mind looks up to,
and shapes for itself, would elude their sight. He who loves not
his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God? asked the
wisest of men.
It is natural for youth to adorn the first object of its affection
with every good quality, and the emulation produced by ignorance,
or, to speak with more propriety, by inexperience, brings forward
the mind capable of forming such an affection, and when, in the
lapse of time, perfection is found not to be within the reach of
mortals, virtue, abstractly, is thought beautiful, and wisdom
sublime. Admiration then gives place to friendship, properly so
called, because it is cemented by esteem; and the being walks alone
only dependent on heaven for that emulous panting after perfection
which ever glows in a noble mind.
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