One has the same pity for
such men as for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate.
They have had no real education, for they have never learned
How to live.
Few men know how to live. We grow up at random carrying into mature
life the merely animal methods and motives which we had as little
children. And it does not occur to us that all this must be changed
that much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest of the
Fine Arts; that it has to be learned with life-long patience, and
that the years of our pilgrimage are all too short to master it
triumphantly.
Yet this is what Christianity is for--to teach men
The art of life.
And its whole curriculum lies in one word--"Learn of me." Unlike
most education, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had
from books, or lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study from
the life. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian
graces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy
Him. We learn His art by living with Him, like the old apprentices
with their masters.
Now we understand it all? Christ's invitation to the weary
and heavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a new
principle--upon His own principle. "Watch my way of doing things,"
He says; "Follow me.
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