The works of the Rev. William Thom, late minister ... - waughfamily.ca

404: LETTERS, TRACTS, ^C.ter ; for I do from the heart declare, that if ever Ifaw the value of true knovi^ledge, if ever I beheld thebeauty, and felt the conftraiiiing power of religionand virtue, it was while, on thefe momentous fubje£):s,I was hearing the fpirited and penetrating difcourfesof ilvat excellent teacher : I really never heardhim without wifhing to be polTeiTed of feme virtuewhich he made me fenfible I wanted ; and if wifhingto be virtuous be fome degree of virtue, I alwayscame out of his fchool better than I went into it.But if I hear the lectures or read the books of fucceedingprofefibrs with all the care I can, my heartis never affected by them: I feel no fort of emotion,nor any deGre of virtue, nor even of knowledge. Moftcertainly our prefent teaching profeiTors are a verydifferent fort of men. "When I hear their dry andconfufcd fpeeches from the bench, in this trial, I feebut too well that they mull fpeak in a languid, drowfy,and confufed manner in their claffes, and be ableto convey but a very pitiful degree of knowledge totheir poor unhappy ftudents.Chap. 31. I have in this hiflory propofed to givemy readers as clear an idea as I can, not only of thecollege, but partly alft) of the city of Clutha. It iswith that deHgn that in my two lafl chapters I havefet down the real fpeeches of two fenhble Cluthanians,and from thefe it will be eafily perceived in whata contemptible (late of ignorance, error, and corruption,the college was at this particular period. It willbe remarked, that the gentlemen of Clutha fpoke ofthe profeiTors nearly in the fame flyie forwhich tlieftudent was profecuted. And, in fa6t, it appearsfrom authentic mxmoirs and informations, that feveralof the profeffors taught in a manner fo dry andunentertaining, that no epithet fo proper and characteriflicas that of droiufy could be applied to them.They read over their philological, their dialectical,their ontological, and their pneumatological IcSlures,