With regard to these his powers of expression were
commensurate with his knowledge. The Psalms of David were more
comprehensible to him than the simplest formulas of arithmetic.
Mollie Ainslie was not unfrequently amazed at this inequality of
nature in her favorite pupil. On one side he seemed a full-grown
man of grand proportions; on the other, a pigmy-child. She had heard
him pour forth torrents of eloquence on the Sabbath, and felt the
force of a nature exceptionally rich and strong in its conception
of religious truths and human needs, only to find him on the
morrow floundering hopelessly in the mire of rudimentary science,
or getting, by repeated perusals, but an imperfect idea of some
author's words, which it seemed to her he ought to have grasped
at a glance.
He had always been a man of thought, and now for two years he had
been studying after the manner of the schools, and his tasks were
yet but rudimentary. It is true, he had read much and had learned
not a little in a thousand directions which he did not appreciate,
but yet he was discouraged and despondent, and it is no wonder that
he was so. The mountain which stood in his pathway could not be
climbed over nor passed by, but pebble by pebble and grain by grain
must be removed, until a broad, smooth highway showed instead. And
all this he must do before he could comprehend the works of those
writers whose pages glow with light to _our_ eyes from the
very first.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199