On Certain Errors of Pious Students in our Colleges [pp. 230-239]

2.cademical course tf
ledge, as to bring his powers to the test. The false independence of the home bred and conceited youth is visibly reduced
by the wisdom of established plans, and the competition of
rival minds. Now the Christian student ought to be free
firom many of these influences. From conscience, from experience, he ought to distrust his own judgment. As the servant of the Church, charged with this particular duty, and laid
under an obligation to acquire certain mental furniture, he
ought as scrupulously to comply with every requisition, as if
it were the great business of his life-which, indeed, for the
time being, it is.
The secret cause of this indisposition to certain parts of academical labour, is too often simple sloth. This it is the undoubted duty of the pious student to mortify. He should
learn "to endure hardness" in mental, as well as bodily toils.
" I find nothing," said David Brainerd, " more conducive to
a life of Christianity, than a diligent, industrious, and faithful
improvement of precious time. Let us then faithfully perform
that business which is allotted to us by Divine Providence, to
the utmost of our bodily strength, and bodily vigour." And
it was remarked by Buchanan, in a letter to the venerable
Newton, that although the mathematical studies of the university were little to his taste, and scarcely connected, by any
link which he could perceive, with his future labours, yet he
diligently pursued them, put a constraint on his natural pre.
dilections, and yielded himself to their absorbing abstractions
as a part of his Christian self-denial. This is an example
worthy of every Christian student. The" greatly beloved,"
Martyn was influenced by the same motives in those toils
which caused him to be designated, while at Cambridge, as
" the man who never lost an hour.'" It is with pleasure that
we hold up the last mentioned servant of Christ, for the imitation of Christian students. To our surprise, we find him
treated by some American writers as a man of eminent piety
and indefatigable diligence, but as being by no means distinguished for natural endowments and extraordinary genius.
Here we must again dissent. It was something more
than plodding assiduity which placed him at the head of
hundreds in the university, both as a classic and a mathematician. This was no ordinary competition, and with no ordinary men. In all his subsequent labours, compositions, and
controversies, we discern the evidences of genius, rare and
eminent. We especially deprecate this derogation from his
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