The Crown of Thorns: A Token for the SorrowingChapin, E. H. (Edwin Hubbell)
Religion
The Crown of Thorns: A Token for the Sorrowing
Chapin, E. H. (Edwin Hubbell)
Consolation
degree of human intellect prophesies beyond all this; the darkest heart,
with that spark of eternal life, the yearning that moves beneath all
its sensualities, and speaks for better, for more enduring things,--that
rebukes thee; and in man's moral nature, in his heart and his mind,
there is that which only can be satisfied, only can be explained by
God and immortality. They alone, then, are rational, they alone have
comprehensive vision, who walk by faith, and not by sight.
Mystery and faith, then; let what we have said concerning these be not
alone for the skeptic, but for the Christian who has faith but cannot
fully justify and confirm it, or who feels it faltering under some heavy
burden, or who is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the truths to which
it attaches, or who wishes, with a kind of half-doubt, that these things
might be seen and felt. They are great, they are incomprehensibly great;
but are they therefore untrue? Does not your heart of hearts tell you
they are true? Does not that Revelation of Christ steal into your soul
and feed it, satisfy it, as nothing else can, with a warm, benignant
power, that makes you know its truth?
Mysteries are all about us, but faith sees light beyond and around them
all. Have you recently laid down the dead in their place of rest? Cold
and crushing, then, is that feeling of vacancy, that dreary sense of
loss, that rushes upon you, as you look through the desolate chambers
without,--through the desolate chambers of the heart within. But will
not He who calls out from the very dust where yon sleepers lie the
flowers of summer, and who, in the snows that enwrap their bed,
cherishes the germs of the glorious springtime, will not He who works
out this beautiful mystery in nature bring life back from the tomb,
and light out of darkness? It is truly a great mystery; but everything
within us responds to it as reasonable; and though it demands our faith,
who, who, in this limited and changing world, can walk by sight alone?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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