Of Pedantry by Montaigne

We are commanded to learn all we can. This commandment can be found in the scriptures and from the words of the living prophets. There is always a condition that comes with the admonition to learn, and that is to always seek God first. This essay is about this command and condition. Montaigne condemns pedantry and philosophers. Pedants are those who are too proud of their education. They are vain and boastfully display their knowledge. Philosophers are those who have really great ideas, but neither worry about nor care about the practical side of their ideas. He doesn't consider either group fit for public office or much else for that matter.

The problem he sees, and I agree with him, is that they don't study the right way. They learn to look good, but never internalize it. He likens them to birds who forage for food and bring it home in their beaks for their young without actually tasting it. This is manifest by gleaning a few sentences from lots of books and keeping them on the tip of your tongue ready to spew out for show. Knowledge should be used to change us for the better. It is wrong to fill our minds and those of our children with out creating virtue. Parents and society are at fault. Parents expect teachers to teach facts to their children and then tie their hands when it comes to morality. The world values a learned man more than a good man. “We only labor to stuff the memory and leave the conscience and understand unfurnished and void.”

Education has three levels, references to these are found throughout the scriptures. They are knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Knowledge is filling our minds with facts, understanding is internalizing the knowledge, and wisdom naturally follows by using our knowledge and understanding to change us and in the process the world. This takes effort and can be painful. Montaigne's advice is to take the challenge to gain wisdom. He suggests that people stop learning for learning's sake, you need to apply it and do some good. Having large libraries and even reading them, according to Montaigne, is useless unless we form our own thoughts. I attempt to accomplish this by writing these essays. Most scholars, he claims, are just parrots saying what everyone else has said. He asks, “but what do we have to say?”

Obtaining wisdom is the only virtuous goal of education. It is not enough to just not let our education corrupt us, as hard as that is, it has to make us better. This takes time. “Though we could become learned by other men's learning, a man can never be wise but by his own wisdom.” He also tells us that is we can not incorporate what we are studying into soul and if this can't be done it is better to not learn at all. Denver Snuffer wrote in his book, The Second Comforter, Conversing With the Lord Through the Veil, “No education is better than no education.”

The right motivation is the key. Getting a job, just to have knowledge, or to look good are not correct motivation, wisdom is the only one that qualifies. The reason is summed up by Montaigne, “Knowledge is an excellent drug, but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.” It is our job to keep our vessel clean and pur of any unworthy motivation and do good with what we learn. We need to make sure that the balance of our lives is forever tipped toward faith so that we never find ourselves relying on our own are any other man's “arm of flesh,” reasoning, and intellect.

Customs by Montaigne

Doing something over and over makes it easier to do, even if the time tween occurrences is long, we can still become used to it, like living by church bells or railroad tracks. I have even noticed this happening when the intervals are random, such as the sirens for the fire alerts. This is the idea behind habits building, or laying the rails, that Charlotte Mason wrote about. When something is our custom or habit we can do it without thinking, like walking or driving. Changing our customs does not come easy. This is what Montaigne meant when he wrote, “Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress.” This is never more true than when we try to break from custom, even in little things like getting dressed in a certain order, but surely in big things such as family holiday traditions. We are met with opposition not only from ourselves, but from others as well.

New customs and habits are learned slowly and ones we have now may have originated in our early childhood. Montaigne wrote, “I find our greatest vices derive their first propensity from our most tender infancy and that our principle education depends upon the nurse.” This statement made me sop and really think about the customs I am passing along to my children and the habits I am allowing them to develop. Most of them are good and I have been deliberate about it, but some are not. These are the ones that I have often unwittingly allowed to form and that need my direct attention. This is why the years from birth until at least the age of accountability are so very important. What children learn them will determine what they are able to learn and do the rest of their lives. Cor values such as discipline, obedience, listening, diligence, and hard work need to be taught first along with the ability to determine what is right and wrong, good and bad, and true and false. They also need to have time to play and develop their imaginations. There really is no time for academics. Actually academics is not desirable or possible without the foundation of these core values and skills.

These are taught by mom, starting from the very beginning. As mothers we need to require obedience, quality work, and attention. Children need to work with mom on what ever needs to be done. They need to love to hear mom's voice and learn to respond to it whenever she speaks. We need to model all of this. We also need to limit their exposure to bad models of the qualities we want them to develop.

This means work, hard work that many of my generation don't know how to do. It means breaking some of the customs that have developed in our culture and establishing your own. We should not be sending our 3 and 4 year old babies to preschool. We need to stop watching television and playing video games. We need to stay home and stop entertaining our children. Probably the most difficult to do and yet the most important is to do what Charlotte Mason calls Masterly Inactivity. This is supervising your children and being there to correct if necessary, but not hovering or being intrusive.

Breaking form custom is hard, but certainly work it if the custom is wrong. That is what New Years resolutions are all about. We should periodically, not just January 1, look at our lives and decide if our customs or habits lead us to or away from God and adjust accordingly.

I am not reading Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais

After reading the biographical information about Rabelais and some reviews of his writing, I learned my lesson from Lysistrata., I have decided to skip this one. There is so much filth and evil surrounding me in the world I do not need to invite it into my home via television, radio, entertainment, magazines, or the books I read. I know there is value in the work or it would not have included in the collection, but I am not interested in what the world values only what God values and he is directing me away from it. Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk in the October 2007 General Conference that has guided my choices since. In it he said, “We have to forgo some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families.” I can with certainty that this is not a “best”, it is not a “better”, and is not even a “good” so I will not be touching it. My purpose in using the “good, better, best” test can be found in Doctrine and Covenants section 133 verse 5, “Go ye out from Babylon. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” I can't do this if I actually invite Babylon into my home and mind through reading things like this. I am so thankful to have the Holy Ghost and living prophets to guide me.

The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli

The Prince by Machiavelli has been a taboo book for me for a long time. As a consequence, it has sat on my shelf for many years waiting to be read. I had heard it to be a how-to-guide for ruthless rulers. It seemed to be to be a book about furthering the suffering of innocent people at the hands of had leaders and I thought it would be hard. I was partly right in that there was much advice about how to get and stay on top, but it was not hard to read at all. In fact, it was easy. It flowed really nice and it was fascinating.

Machiavelli wrote it as a gift for Prince Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici. It seemed to me to be a resume or job application. He had been removed by the monarchy from a position his family had held for generations. He had been living in the country and at night secretly dressed in his court garments and conversed, through books, with the great men of history. He state his was writing down his observations about the successes and failures of past rulers in order to advise the new ruler.

The basic premise is that the end power and glory, earthly glory, justifies any means of getting there. Machiavelli advises over and over of avoiding the hatred of the people. According to him, this, having the people hate you, was the most dangerous position for a leader to find himself in. To accomplish this he suggest things such as the prince relocate, temporarily, to a newly acquired principality, not changing their laws or taxes, and at the very least keep the cruelty swift, early, and only to a necessary degree. The other alternative is the ruin them. “They ought to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefor the injury that is to be done ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”

After reading just a part of it I realized that there was very little that I could apply to me as a wife and mother, so I had to step away from my world view and try to see it from theirs. This was good advice to give to people whose only purpose is to gain power without any worry about eternity. I do know people like this, but even with success they are not happy. Selfishness is the theme running through the whole book.

Probably the most damaging and damning advice he gives is that it is not necessary to possess the good qualities he suggests, just o appear that the does. He points it out most directly when speaking of religious matters, this way when it becomes prudent or necessary they will not be held back by actual faith in God. They need to be good, but only in a way that people see them being good, merciful, faithful, etc. Doing it without the people knowing is a waste of time.

Almost all of what he promoted was the opposite of what I have been taught. Machiavellie is only concerned wit the here and now. He also believes that all men are enemies. Either they are weak or they are strong, but all are bad. The weak are only concerned about not being oppressed and are always looking for a replacement for their leader to better their situation and the strong are all rivals to your power. What a lonely life this kind of thinking leads to!

I prefer the government of god through men who hold the priesthood. Good leaders, in my opinion, let charity be our guide, “Charity suffereth long and is kind, envieth not, and it not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil and rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things hepeth all things, endureth all things.” A real leader follows the counsel found in Doctrine and Covenants 121: 41-46:

41No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;

42By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—

43Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

44That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.

45Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

46The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.

The man or woman who leads this way will be truly successful. Success and peace in this life come from aiming for success in the next. God already proved this when the Isrealites surrounded the walls of Jericho. His prophet showed that, “They that be

with us are more than they that be with them.” There are many examples of righteous leaders in the scriptures. God has promised the He will go before us, a leader who follows Him can't fail.

Finally Laying Down Our Weapons of Rebellion

The Anti-Nephi-Lehis in the Book of Mormon are an example of following God with full purpose of heart. They not only laid down their weapons of war, but as Elder Patrick Kearon of the Seventy pointed out in his talk to the Priesthood brethren in the October 2010 General Conference, they also laid down their weapons of rebellion. They stopped fighting against God and their conversion was real and complete. The scriptures point out that “they never did fall away.” By laying down their weapons of rebellion they qualified for the healing power of the Savior. He has promised us peace and forgiveness if we just come unto Him and repent. Elder Kearon contrasts this with the fact that God is grieved, the Spirit leaves, and we are left on our own when we attempt “to cover our sins or to gratify our pride or our vain ambitions.”

We must bring ourselves to the only one who can heal us, our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. We do this, as Elder Kearnon states, by “lay(ing) down our weapons of rebellion.” After reading this I prayed for God to tell me what my weapons are and how to lay them down. My mind was opened and the Spirit showed me what my most pressing weaknesses are. They are attitudes that many people probably deal with. None of them were a surprise for me, this was not the first time I was told to change these things. This first step is probably the hardest one to do. Some of our attitudes were sown in us as a child, the result of trauma of some kind, or rebellion against God's commandments. Recognizing the beliefs that we hold that are wrong takes much soul searching humility. Once we know what they are we can begin the arduous task of laying them down. I love the imagery that invokes. I can at any point on my journey set those beliefs down and walk away; probably walk faster with out all of that weight. Then the task becomes not going back and picking them up again.

In addition to the weapons of rebellion Elder Kearon admonishes us to “lay down our sin, vanity, and pride.” I see the weapons of rebellion as my attitude and thoughts, while sin, vanity, and pride as the actions that follow those beliefs. This is something that we, also, need to humbly ask God to tell us the specific things we need to change. These are just bullet points that if written down would define my weapons of rebellion. These are the sins we commit everyday, and especially those we seem to commit over and over. Taking time before you pray at night to analyze your behavior during the day for things you need to repent of will tell you what these are. Each action I change makes the journey lighter. The hard part here is keeping our focus because laying down a rebellious attitude is like setting down a large rock that I have been carrying, but each specific action is more like a pebble. Laying down one may not seem to make much of a difference, especially since everyday we will be picking up more pebbles because of the nature of mortality, but over time, after many pebbles have been dropped a difference will be felt. Eventually, the idea is the drop more than we pick up.

Another part of bring ourselves to Christ is according to Kearon, “giving up our desires to follow the world and to be respected and lauded by the world.” This fits right in with the vanity and pride mentioned earlier, but as those are actions this, again, is attitude. It is most likely a weapon of rebellion that required its own category because of its especially harmful effects. God wants and expects his covenant people to be different than the world. His standards are different for a reason and they will lead us to Eternal Life. His prophets teach just exactly what this standard is. By studying their words we will have a touchstone by which to judge all that we do . Following the prophets is vital to our salvation. There is too much of the beliefs of the world creeping into the attitudes of even the best of the saints. Keep in mind that the Lord as already warned that “even the elect will be deceived.” As the world gets more and more wicked the gulf between the righteous and the world will get bigger and bigger. We will find it more and more important to find ourselves standing on the right side of that gulf, avoiding that great and spacious building and the impossibility of straddling the gulf.

The great thing about the atonement is that all of this is possible. If we come to Him he will carry all of our burdens until we lay them down, in fact it will be easier to lay them down because we will have His help to make the change complete. The first step is to lay down our Weapons of Rebellion. To do this we need to change our attitudes about some things. We have to first humbly ask the Lord what weapons we are carrying and then take the time to root the evil out of our hearts. Then and only then, will we be able to lay down our sins, vanity, and pride. At the same time we will lose our desire for praise and acceptance in the world.

The Confessions of St. Augustine

The Confessions of St. Augustine was not very easy for me to read. It was like reading someone's personal journal. I can't help but hope that that was his purpose in writing, not to be used an doctrine. Regardless of why he wrote it, his writings have been canonized by the Catholic church, which is unfortunate. He hypothesized about many things that are not based on scripture and seemed to just be working the ideas out in his own mind for him personally, such as children being born sinners and living a celibate life. Unfortunately people have taken his writings to be true teachings of God with out taking time to research them.

Another problem that I have in seeing this as a scholarly work in theology is that he stated many theses that he did not back up with facts. This is too bad because people have believed what he had to say and possibly some suffering, especially for children, could have been avoided since this time. He wrote a lot about how awful man is, but it got to the point of being offensive after all we are created by God and the light of Christ shines in all of us. I do admit my baseness, but also acknowledge my divine nature as a child of God. He wrote about how he was sinful as a baby for crying to have his needs met instead of just trusting that God would take care of him. I can't see this, or even understand where the idea would come from, certainly not the scriptures. They are just communicating in the only way they know how until we teach them better. The sin would be in continuing to cry and pout and throw tantrums after we have been taught a better way and then only after the age of accountability. If it is a sin for a baby to cry for what it needs from mortal parents, how much more of a sin would it be to cry to God, our perfect, eternal Father, for what we need. Yet this is exactly what we are told to do over and over in the scriptures. If this were true than my first attempts at prayer would have been a sin. Before I knew how to properly say a prayer my utterances were primitive, to say the least, but as I have been taught by the Holy Ghost and those I trust my communication has slowly reached a higher level. All of my sincere prayers have been acceptable. They are not more acceptable now than they were in the beginning, nor are they less acceptable than President Thomas S. Monson's, even though his are definitely on a higher level than mine. On the same note, if my prayers were now the same as they were in the beginning, knowing what I have been taught, I would be sinning. “For to whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required¹.”

He also spends too much time on “pearly gates” questions. These are questions that don't really have any bearing on our salvation. We have been warned about this in the scriptures and living prophets.

I did feel compassion for him when he described his early school experiences. He was force dot learn much of what he didn't want to, and beaten when he didn't or couldn't. Later in his life he decided to become educated and undertakes that task himself. He wrote, “No doubt, then that a free curiosity have more force in our learning these things (languages), than a frightful enforcement.” This is the educational philosophy of our home. It is true that you can't make someone learn something, they may memorize a fact or two, but real learning does not occur until there is a desire for knowledge. We spend our time trying to foster that desire. H claimed that enforcement is only appropriate when it comes to God's laws, but I disagree. His original statement applies here as well. Forcing children or adults to keep the commandments doesn't lead to true conversion. We have to teach our children from the time they re small to love God and that He loves us too, then they will have a desire to please him by following his law. Actions are not the aim of gospel teaching in our home, a “mighty change in (their) hearts²” is our goal.

At the the time of writing this he was lamenting the fact hat his parents didn't do a good job of teaching him to control his appetites. His lack of discipline allowed him to fall into sexual transgression as a youth. We need to heed this warning and restrict access to possible evil influenced until children are mature enough and spiritually strong enough to handle them, carry the “suitcase” for them so to speak³. He also suggests that children should be taught scripture before we worry about grammar or history. These are definitely much more important, especially in the younger years.

He goes into a great deal of detail about his sings, not by today's standards, and in fact, I think he handled it well. He said that his purpose was to show that you can repent of anything. It does help me to see those I admire as human, but sometimes this backfires. Timing is important here. I was a little taken aback by revelations from a woman I really admired as a youth, but in the end I respected her willingness to repent. If I had learned this earlier, as an older youth, I may have been devastated.

His sexual transgressions are given in some detail, not graphic, though. He loved sex, not only the act, but the praise he go for having performed an act. In fact, he even lied at times about things he didn't actually do. He ends of concluding that sex is wrong. This doesn't surprise me because those who break the law of chastity always have a skewed view of sex, even after repentance. It is like a pendulum, the further you go astray the harder it is come back to neutral. He has many experiences where the Spirit touches him and he wants to repent, but his flesh is much stronger than his spirit. It is not until early adulthood, 32, that he finds out that the more often we suppress our flesh the stronger our spirit becomes.

A sad part was that at one point he had a lover whom he loved very much. They even had children together. Eventually his mother persuades him to get engaged to another girl who would need to wait two years to get married. He gives her up in order to be engaged. She moves to Africa and vows to never marry again. I really felt for this woman because I am sure it was because of her class status that Augustine didn't marry her and she lived the rest of her life alone. Then to add salt to her wound her finds that he can't control himself long enough to wait to marry the young girl and takes another lover. I really hope she never found out. I guess this is the type of situations that occur as a result of sexual immorality. His reason for this is that we can make good bitter by forsaking God for the good we love. He eventually gives up his plan for marriage all together, lucky for the other girl. I can't imagine what kind of husband he would have made at this point in his life.

Another of his sins that was probably the most difficult to overcome was his pride in his intelligence and education. His pride made him feel like he needed certainty before he can believe.

What he doesn't realize is that this is not belief, it would be knowledge. Belief takes faith, knowledge eliminates the need for faith. He also looks to prove things wrong instead of looking for truth.

A bright spot and turning point in his life is when he developed a relationship with a bishop at Milan named Ambrose. He was a great blessing to Augustine, who said, “To him was I unknowingly led by Thee, that by him I might be led to Thee.” Ambrose showed love to Augustine and Augustine began to love him back. Ambrose had a reputation as an eloquent speaker, but it is interesting that his influence on Augustine was through his friendship and not his sermons. This seems to me to be the point of visiting teaching. As we get to know our sisters and become friends our influence in their lives grows. This is also why member referrals to missionaries are the preferred method of finding people for the missionaries to teach.

He is finally, truly, converted through hearing the version stories of his friends and reading the stories of others. This is what makes fast and testimony meetings so powerful, or potentially so. As we are spiritually prepared by fasting we can be fed by the spirit while listening to the faith building experiences of others.

Overall it was a good thing to read. I wish that he would have been more clear about when he was stating his opinion and when he was revealing the word of God, although I don't consider him a prophet so his stewardship for revelation does not go beyond his family. I don't think it is necessary for me to read any beyond his conversion story.

1Luke 12:48

2Alma 5:14

3Boom, Corie Ten, The Hiding Place