Special Method in the Reading of Complete English Classics: In the Grades of the Common SchoolMcMurry, Charles A. (Charles Alexander)
General
Special Method in the Reading of Complete English Classics: In the Grades of the Common School
McMurry, Charles A. (Charles Alexander)
American literature -- Study and teaching; English literature -- Study and teaching
"And Milton says, 'They have no such thing as spiritual food; they are
only swolln with wind.' At first you may think that is a coarse type,
and an obscure one. But, again, it is a quite literally accurate one.
Take up your Latin and Greek dictionaries, and find out the meaning of
'Spirit.' It is only a contraction of the Latin word 'breath,' and an
indistinct translation of the Greek word for 'wind.' The same word is
used in writing. 'The wind bloweth where it listeth;' and 'So is every
one that is born of the Spirit,' born of the breath, that is, for it
means the breath of God, in soul and body. We have the true sense of it
in our words 'inspiration' and 'expire.' Now, there are two kinds of
breath with which the flock may be filled; God's breath and man's. The
breath of God is health and life and peace to them, as the air of heaven
is to the flocks on the hills; but man's breath--the word he calls
spiritual--is disease and contagion to them, as the fog of the fen. They
rot inwardly with it; they are puffed up by it, as a body by the vapors
of its own decomposition. This is literally true of all false religious
teaching; the first and last and fatalest sign of it is that 'puffing
up.'
"Lastly, let us return to the lines respecting the power of the keys,
for now we can understand them. Note the difference between Milton and
Dante in their interpretation of this power; for once the latter is
weaker in thought; he supposes both the keys to be of the gate of
heaven; one is of gold, the other of silver; they are given by St. Peter
to the sentinel angel, and it is not easy to determine the meaning
either of the substances of the three steps of the gate or of the two
keys. But Milton makes one, of gold, the key of heaven; the other, of
iron, the key of the prison, in which the wicked teachers are to be
bound who 'have taken away the key of knowledge, yet entered not in
themselves.'
"We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to see and feed,
and, of all who do so, it is said, 'He that watereth, shall be watered
also himself.' But the reverse is truth also. He that watereth not,
shall be withered himself, and he that seeth not, shall himself be shut
out of sight,--shut into the perpetual prison house. And that prison
opens here as well as hereafter; he who is to be bound in heaven must
first be bound on earth. That command to the strong angels, of which the
rock-apostle is the image, 'Take him, and bind him hand and foot, and
cast him out,' issues, in its measure, against the teacher for every
help withheld, and for every truth refused, and for every falsehood
enforced; so that he is more strictly fettered the more he fetters, and
further outcast as he more and more misleads, till at last the bars of
the iron cage close upon him, and as 'the golden opes, the iron shuts
amain.'
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