Self-Culture

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MAN'S DUTY TO GROW. GOD has placed us here to grow, just as he placed the trees and flowers. The trees and the flowers grow unconsciously, and by no effort of their own. Man, too, grows unconsciously, and is educated by circumstances. But he can also control those circumstances, and direct the course of...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MAN'S DUTY TO GROW. GOD has placed us here to grow, just as he placed the trees and flowers. The trees and the flowers grow unconsciously, and by no effort of their own. Man, too, grows unconsciously, and is educated by circumstances. But he can also control those circumstances, and direct the course of his life. He can educate himself; he can, by effort and thought, acquire knowledge, become accomplished, refine and purify his nature, develop his powers, strengthen his character. And because he can do this, he ought to do it. It is curious that Christian teachers should have so often neglected to inculcate this duty of self-culture, seeing that it is so plainly taught by Jesus in the Gospels. This is the doctrine of the parable of the talents and of the pounds. Both teach that it is not enough to render back to our Master what we have received, unimpaired and uninjured; but that we must bring back more than we receive, ? that is, that we must add something, by our own industry and fidelity, to what God intrusts to us; that we are his stewards. The parable of the talents teaches the law of responsibility; that of the pounds, the law of retribution. The first shows that the more . we receive, the more we are bound to do; those who have two talents must bring two more; those who have five, five more. The other shows that the more we gain, the more we shall receive; that progress is not according to arithmetical but geometrical progression; that it is a constantly accelerated progress. Ten men have each a single pound. One gains two pounds, and receives two cities; one five, and receives five cities. Not merely two pounds, but two cities; the powers developed in a lower service are employed in a higher one. The man who is faithful in a few things here will be made ruler ove...