51

But every Primer is only for a certain age.  To delay the child, that has outgrown it, longer in it than it was intended for, is hurtful.  For to be able to do this is a way in any sort profitable, you must insert into it more than there is really in it, and extract from it more than it can contain.  You must look for and make too much of allusions and hints; squeeze allegories too closely; interpret examples too circumstantially; press too much upon words.  This gives the child a petty, crooked, hair splitting understanding:  it makes him full of mysteries, superstitions; full of contempt for all that is comprehensible and easy.

52

The very way in which the Rabbins handled their sacred books!  The very character which they thereby imparted to the character of their people!

53

A Better Instructor must come and tear the exhausted Primer from the child’s hands.  Christ came!

54

That portion of the human race which God had willed to comprehend in one Educational plan, was ripe for the Second step of Education.  He had, however, only willed to comprehend on such a plan, one which by language, mode of action, government, and other natural and political relationships, was already united in itself.

55

That is, this portion of the human race was come so far in the exercise of its reason, as to need, and to be able to make use of nobler and worthier motives of moral action than temporal rewards and punishments, which had hitherto been its guides.  The child had become a youth.  Sweetmeats and toys have given place to the budding desire to go as free, as honored, and as happy as its elder brother.

56

For a long time, already, the best individuals of that portion of the human race (called above the elder brother); had been accustomed to let themselves be ruled by the shadow of such nobler motives.  The Greek and Roman did everything to live on after this life, even if it were only in the remembrance of their fellow-citizens.

57

It was time that another true life to be expected after this should gain an influence over the youth’s actions.

58

And so Christ was the first certain practical Teacher of the immortality of the soul.

59

The first certain Teacher.  Certain, through the prophecies which were fulfilled in Him; certain, through the miracles which He achieved; certain, through His own revival after a death through which He had sealed His doctrine.  Whether we can still prove this revival, these miracles, I put aside, as I leave on one side who the Person of Christ was.  All that may have been at that time of great weight for the reception of His doctrine, but it is now no longer of the same importance for the recognition of the truth of His doctrine.

60

The first practical Teacher.  For it is one thing to conjecture, to wish, and to believe the immortality of the soul, as a philosophic speculation:  quite another thing to direct the inner and outer acts by it.