INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind."- MArk xii, 30. 66 I have chosen these words from Jesus' statement of the two great commandments as a text from which to discourse this evening on Intellectual Virtue. This is a portion of indivisible human virtue to which, in its larger aspects, preachers do not often attend; but to it the teacher of a complete ethic of life is bound to give a high place. They who assign it too low a place in their scheme of morals are wont to call any discourse upon it from the pulpit a lecture" rather than a sermon. Such persons take too narrow a view of religion if they hold that only to be a sermon and appropriate to the pulpit which says, even to tedium, "Be good," and never informs us how to be good, more especially how to be good as intellectual beings. One may well retort to such criticism that much preaching would be better, i. e., more effective, more good for something, if it exhorted us more often to beware of evils largely mental in origin and character, such, for instance, as prejudice, narrowmindedness, bigotry and partisanship. These are diseases of thought which corrupt life and vitiate real goodness of heart. The wise writer of Jewish proverbs well said: 66 As a man thinketh within himself so is he," good or bad, sound or unsound. Our New Testament writers, however, differed not only from the philosophy (i. e., the "love of wisdom ") of the Greek, but also from the Old Testament type of religion in having comparatively little to say about wisdom or knowledge, and the pursuit of it, as a religious duty. Many of the Old Testament writers dwelt fondly upon " the wise man " and his excellences. They cannot speak too highly of him, and they employ very plain language about his opposite, the simple one, the unwise man, as they do not hesitate to call him frequently the "fool "— a man who may be very good in some moral ways, but is obviously, to the wise, not good for much, possibly almost good for nothing, because of his folly, his lack of intellectual worth, of thinking ability, of power to see straight, and reason clearly. But usually he can talk freely, however unwisely, and therefore the Book of Proverbs is led to say of him: "Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar with a pestle, among bruised grain, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." Such plainspeaking, and there is much of it in the Old Testament about this undesirable person in society, is exceedingly wholesome for all of us, especially for any who tend to identify goodness of heart with softness of brain. Yes, an occasional "lecture," if these persons will so name it, about the duty of having and being sound minds, and using our minds morally, will do us good. Though the New Testament says little about such virtues, they are more and more needful in our modern life, and the lack of them spoils much of the goodness of the sentimentally good. A little heathen philosophy even, as distinct from religion, will serve to keep religion strong and pure: some bracing chapters from the Old Testament in praise of wisdom will greatly edify the Christian who is closely confined to a diet of "love." Sermons of this complexion are surely Biblical, and they hold to a part of the Bible which shows a vigorous racial life, not yet outgrown or supplanted. A capable modern writer has distinguished three main directions in which "intellectual virtue" may be exhibited in the pursuit of truth in the communication of it to others, and in the application of it to life. It was this last kind of intellectual virtue that the writers of the Old Testament had most in mind when they spoke in praise of prudence, as when the prudent housewife is held up as an example, or the prudent man who foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, while the simple pass on and are punished. Higher in their estimation stood the wise man who knew many things, physical and social, and could therefore counsel sagely. No eulogy could be too high for the heavenly wisdom conversant with the many works of God, and able to advise us well how to lead our human life uprightly and |