Note 4 — Chapter III

Let not my reader suppose for a moment that the design of the above remarks is to detract from the value of really useful information, or the proper culture of the mental powers. By no means. If, for example, he is a parent, let him store his child's mind with useful knowledge; let him teach him everything which may, hereafter, turn to account in the Master's service: let him not burden him with aught which he would have to "lay aside" in running his Christian course, nor conduct him, for educational purposes, through a region from which it is well-nigh impossible to come forth with an unsoiled mind. You might just as well shut him up for ten years in a coal mine in order to qualify him for discussing the properties of light and shade, as cause him to wade through the mire of a heathen mythology in order to fit him for the interpretation of the oracles of God, or prepare him for feeding the flock of Christ.