Who would undertake the enterprise if it were
all?
And, pray, what more has day to offer? A lamp that burns
more clear, a purer oil, say winter-strained, that so we may
pursue our idleness with less obstruction. Bribed with a little
sunlight and a few prismatic tints, we bless our Maker, and stave
off his wrath with hymns.
I make ye an offer,
Ye gods, hear the scoffer,
The scheme will not hurt you,
If ye will find goodness, I will find virtue.
Though I am your creature,
And child of your nature,
I have pride still unbended,
And blood undescended,
Some free independence,
And my own descendants.
I cannot toil blindly,
Though ye behave kindly,
And I swear by the rood,
I'll be slave to no God.
If ye will deal plainly,
I will strive mainly,
If ye will discover,
Great plans to your lover,
And give him a sphere
Somewhat larger than here.
"Verily, my angels! I was abashed on account of my servant, who
had no Providence but me; therefore did I pardon him." - _The
Gulistan of Sadi._
Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some
originality and genius, have their scheme of the universe all cut
and dried, - very _dry_, I assure you, to hear, dry enough to
burn, dry-rotted and powder-post, methinks, - which they set up
between you and them in the shortest intercourse; an ancient and
tottering frame with all its boards blown off. They do not walk
without their bed. Some, to me, seemingly very unimportant and
unsubstantial things and relations, are for them everlastingly
settled, - as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the like. These
are like the everlasting hills to them. But in all my wanderings
I never came across the least vestige of authority for these
things. They have not left so distinct a trace as the delicate
flower of a remote geological period on the coal in my grate.
The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees
no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear
sky. If I ever see more clearly at one time than at another, the
medium through which I see is clearer. To see from earth to
heaven, and see there standing, still a fixture, that old Jewish
scheme! What right have you to hold up this obstacle to my
understanding you, to your understanding me! You did not invent
it; it was imposed on you. Examine your authority. Even Christ,
we fear, had his scheme, his conformity to tradition, which
slightly vitiates his teaching. He had not swallowed all
formulas. He preached some mere doctrines. As for me, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtilest imaginable essences,
which would not stain the morning sky. Your scheme must be the
framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins.
The perfect God in his revelations of himself has never got to
the length of one such proposition as you, his prophets, state.
Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count three? Do
you know the number of God's family? Can you put mysteries into
words? Do you presume to fable of the ineffable? Pray, what
geographer are you, that speak of heaven's topography? Whose
friend are you that speak of God's personality? Do you, Miles
Howard, think that he has made you his confidant? Tell me of the
height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space,
and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty,
and I shall pronounce thee mad. Yet we have a sort of family
history of our God, - so have the Tahitians of theirs, - and some
old poet's grand imagination is imposed on us as adamantine
everlasting truth, and God's own word! Pythagoras says, truly
enough, "A true assertion respecting God, is an assertion of
God"; but we may well doubt if there is any example of this in
literature.
The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to
having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days
by the church and the Sabbath school, so that it seemed, before I
read it, to be the yellowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early
escaped from their meshes. It was hard to get the commentaries
out of one's head and taste its true flavor. - I think that
Pilgrim's Progress is the best sermon which has been preached
from this text; almost all other sermons that I have heard, or
heard of, have been but poor imitations of this. - It would be a
poor story to be prejudiced against the Life of Christ because
the book has been edited by Christians. In fact, I love this
book rarely, though it is a sort of castle in the air to me,
which I am permitted to dream. Having come to it so recently and
freshly, it has the greater charm, so that I cannot find any to
talk with about it. I never read a novel, they have so little
real life and thought in them. The reading which I love best is
the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I
am better acquainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese, and
the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last.
Give me one of these Bibles and you have silenced me for a while.
When I recover the use of my tongue, I am wont to worry my
neighbors with the new sentences; but commonly they cannot see
that there is any wit in them. Such has been my experience with
the New Testament. I have not yet got to the crucifixion, I have
read it over so many times. I should love dearly to read it
aloud to my friends, some of whom are seriously inclined; it is
so good, and I am sure that they have never heard it, it fits
their case exactly, and we should enjoy it so much together, - but
I instinctively despair of getting their ears.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 19 of 113
Words from 18599 to 19624
of 116321
