I had a respect for the logical basis of
this singular phenomenon. I have always thought it was natural that any
celestial message should demand a language of its own, only to be
understood by divine illumination. All human words tend, of course, to
stop short in human meaning. And the more I hear the most sacred terms
employed, the more I am satisfied that they have entirely and radically
different meanings in the minds of those who use them. Yet they deal
with them as if they were as definite as mathematical quantities or
geometrical figures. What would become of arithmetic if the figure 2
meant three for one man and five for another and twenty for a third, and
all the other numerals were in the same way variable quantities? Mighty
intelligent correspondence business men would have with each other! But
how is this any worse than the difference of opinion which led a famous
clergyman to say to a brother theologian, "Oh, I see, my dear sir, your
God is my Devil."
Man has been studied proudly, contemptuously, rather, from the point of
view supposed to be authoritatively settled. The self-sufficiency of
egotistic natures was never more fully shown than in the expositions of
the worthlessness and wretchedness of their fellow-creatures given by the
dogmatists who have "gone back," as the vulgar phrase is, on their race,
their own flesh and blood.
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