KNOWLEDGE

Acquirement of every kind has two values—value as knowledge, and value discipline. Besides its use for guidance in conduct, the acquisition of each order of facts has also its use as mental exercise; and its effects as a preparative for complete living have to be considered under both these heads.

Knowledge cannot be acquired without pains and application. It is troublesome and deep digging for pure water, but when once you come to the springs, they rise up and meet you. Every grain helps fill the bushel, so does the improvement of every moment increase knowledge.

Says Swedenborg: It is of no advantage to man to know much, unless he lives according to what he knows, for knowledge has no other end than goodness; and he who is made good is in possession of a far richer treasure than he whose knowledge is the most extensive, and yet is destitute of goodness; for, what the latter is seeking by his great acquirements, the former already possesses.

One of the most agreeable consequences of knowledge is the respect and importance which it communicates to old age. Men rise in character often as they increase in years; they are venerable from what they have acquired and pleasing from what they can impart. Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment the treasurer of a wise man.  Superficial knowledge, pleasure dearly purchased, and subsistence at the will of another, are the disgrace of mankind.