Fire.
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,
Not of philosophers and of savants.
Certitude. Certitude. Sentiment. Joy. Peace.
God of Jesus Christ
My God and your God.
Thy God will be my God—
Oblivion of the world and of all save God.
He is found only by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Just Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have separated myself from Him—
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water.
My God, will you forsake me?—
Oh, may I not be separated from Him eternally!
This is life eternal, that they know Thee the only true God,
and Him whom Thou hast sent, J.-C.
Jesus Christ—
Jesus Christ—
I have separated myself from Him; I have fled, renounced, crucified Him.
Oh that I may never be separated from Him!
He is only held fast by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Renunciation total and sweet,
etc. {91}
* * * * *
It is difficult to make much of this document. Are we to suppose that
Pascal, on the 23d of November 1654, thought he saw a vision, revealing
to him the truth of Christianity, and the vanity of philosophy and the
world? Even if Pascal did this, our estimate of the matter could hardly
be much affected. But there is no evidence that he himself attached a
supernatural character to the incident. He felt, no doubt, that a real
revelation had come to him, that his mind had been lifted in spiritual
ecstasy away from the love of all that for a time had hid from him the
presence of God and of a higher world. The moment of this blessed
experience had been sacred to him. He had tried to trace it in these
broken characters, and in seasons of doubt or depression he may have
sought to awaken a new fervour of faith and love by their contemplation.
This seems all the natural meaning of the incident; but, as some have
endeavoured to attach to it a supernatural importance, so others, in whom
the idea not only of the supernatural but of the spiritual only excites
contempt, have tried to give to it a purely superstitious character. It
was Condorcet who first applied to the paper the epithet of Pascal’s
“Amulette;” and Lélut has adopted the epithet, and written a volume more
or less relating to it. He supposes the vision to have occurred to
Pascal on the evening of the day when the event at Neuilly had upset his
nervous system—always easily disturbed—and brought before him a frightful
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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