CHAPTJIB cerning any doubts or difficulties that occur to the bearer, this 'brings it very near to conversation or discourse. IV. Conversation is the next method of improvement, and it is attended with the following advantages: 1. When we converse familiarly with a learned friend, we have his awn help at hand to explain to us every word and sen- timent that seems obscure in his discourse, and to inform us of his whole meaning, so that we are in much less danger of mis- takinghis sense ; whereas in books, whatsoever is really obscure, may also abide always- obscure without remedy, since the author is not at hand, that we may enquire his sense. If we mistake the meaning of our friend in conversation, we are quickly set right again ; but in reading we many times go on in the same mistake; and are not capable of recovering ourselves from it. Thence it comes to pass, that we have so many contests in all ages about the meaning of ancient authors; and especially the sacred writers. Happy should we be, could we but converse with Moses, Isaiah, and St. Paul, and consult the prophets and apostle% when we meet with a difficult text ? But that glorious conversation is reserved for the ages Of future blessednesss. 2. When we are discoursing upon any theme with a friend, we may propose our doubts and objections against his sentiT ments, and have therm solved and answered at once. The diffi- culties that arise in our minds, may be removed by one enligh- tening word of our correspondent; whereas in reading, if a difficulty or question arise in our thoughts which the author has not happened to mention, we must be content without a present answer or solution of it. Books cannot speak. 3. Not only the doubts which arise in the mind upon any subject of discourse, are easily proposed and solved in conver- sation, but the very difficulties we meet with in books and in our private studies, may find a relief by friendly conference. We may pore upon a knotty point in solitary meditation many months without a solution, because perhaps we have gotten into a wrong tract of thought; and our labour (while we are pursuing a false scent) is not only useless and unsuccessful, but it leads us per haps into a train of error for want of being corrected in the first step. But if we note down this difficulty when we read it, we may propose it to an ingenious correspondent when we see him; we may be relieved in a moment, and find the difficulty vanish : he beholds the object perhaps in a different view, sets it before us in quite another light, and leads us at once into evidence and truth, and that with a delightful surprise. . 4. Conversation calls out into light what 'has been lodged in all the recesses and secret chambers of the soul: by occa- sional hints and incidents it brings old useful notions into remem-
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