FENELOM.
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to infancy, take away my vain and presumptuouswisdom; make me a child like yourself. Be silent, yewise men of the earth! I desire to be nothing, to knownothing-; to believe all, to suffer all, and to love all.The Word, made flesh, lisps, weeps, and gives forthinfAtine cries;—and shall I take pride in wisdom ; shallI take pleasure in the efforts of my understanding, andfear that the world should not entertain a sufficientlyhigh idea of my ability. No, no; all my delight willbe to grow little; to crush myself; to become obscure;to be silent; to join to the shame of Jesus crucified,the impotence and lisping of the infant Jesus .”
When we reflect that this was written by a man whosedulously adorned his mind by the study of the an-cients, and who added to his own language, bookswritten with elegance and learning, and which displaya comprehensive understanding and delicate taste, wefeel the extent of that humility which could disregardall these human acquirements compared with the omni-science of God; and that as Socrates acknowledged thathe knew nothing, and was therefore pronounced to bethe wisest of men, so did the sense which Fene'lon en-tertained of the nothingness of human wisdom, stamphim as far advanced in that higher knowledge whichcan look down on all human efforts as the working ofemmets on an ant-hill.
Fenelon believed that man had no power to seekheavenly good without the grace of the Saviour. Whenman does right, he alleged that he only assented to theimpulse of God , who disposed him through his graceso to assent. When he did ill, he only resisted theaction of God , which produces no good in him withoutthe co-operation of his assent, thus preserving his freewill. He considered true charity, or love of God , towhich he gave this name, as an intimate sense of anddelight in God ’s perfections, without any aspiration tosalvation. He supposed that there was a love of thebeautiful, the perfect, and the orderly, beyond all tasteand sentiment, which may influence us when we lose