If we consider what happens in conversation, in reveries, in remorse,
in times of passion, in surprises, in the instructions of dreams,
wherein often we see ourselves in masquerade,—the droll disguises only
magnifying and enhancing a real element and forcing it on our distinct
notice,—we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into
knowledge of the secret of nature. All goes to show that the soul in
man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not
a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison,
but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not
the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the
will; is the background of our being, in which they lie,—an immensity
not possessed and that cannot be possessed. From within or from behind,
a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are
nothing, but the light is all. A man is the facade of a temple wherein
all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating,
drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent
himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the
soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action,
would make our knees bend. When it breathes through his intellect, it
is genius; when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when it
flows through his affection, it is love. And the blindness of the
intellect begins when it would be something of itself. The weakness of
the will begins when the individual would be something of himself. All
reform aims in some one particular to let the soul have its way through
us; in other words, to engage us to obey.
Of this pure nature every man is at some time sensible. Language cannot
paint it with his colors. It is too subtile. It is undefinable,
unmeasurable; but we know that it pervades and contains us. We know
that all spiritual being is in man. A wise old proverb says, “God comes
to see us without bell;” that is, as there is no screen or ceiling
between our heads and the infinite heavens, so is there no bar or wall
in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins.
The walls are taken away. We lie open on one side to the deeps of
spiritual nature, to the attributes of God. Justice we see and know,
Love, Freedom, Power. These natures no man ever got above, but they
tower over us, and most in the moment when our interests tempt us to
wound them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account