Chapter XLIV: Appendix: VII
'It no less takes two to deliver the game of Duty from trivial pretence and give it an earnest interest. How can I look up to myself as the higher that reproaches me? issue commands to myself which I dare not disobey? ask forgiveness from myself for sins which myself has committed? surrender to myself with a martyr's sacrifice? and so through all the drama of moral conflict and enthusiasm between myself in a mask and myself in _propria persona_? How far are these semblances, these battles in the clouds, to carry their mimicry of reality? Are we to _worship_ the self-ideality? to _pray_ to an empty image in the air? to trust in sorrow a creature of thought which is but a phenomenon of sorrow? No, if religious communion is reduced to a monologue, its essence is extinct and its soul is gone. It is a living relation, or it is nothing: a response to the Supreme Reality. And vainly will you search for your spiritual dynamics without the Rock Eternal for your [Greek] _pou sto_'--JAMES MARTINEAU, Essays iv. 282, _Ideal Substitutes for God_.
{228}
Comments
Log in to leave a comment.
Modern Substitutes for ChristianityChapter XLIV: Appendix: VII
0%1 min left in chapter