The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-dayUnderhill, Evelyn
Religion
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day
Underhill, Evelyn
Spiritual life
In fact, not only the history of the soul, but that of all full human
achievement, as studied in great creative personalities, shows us that
such achievement has always two sides. (1) There is the solitary vision
or revelation, and personal work in accordance with that vision. The
religious man's direct experience of God and his effort to correspond
with it; the artist's lonely and intense apprehension of beauty, and
hard translation of it; the poet's dream and its difficult expression in
speech; the philosopher's intuition of reality, hammered into thought.
These are personal immediate experiences, and no human soul will reach
its full stature unless it can have the measure of freedom and
withdrawal which they demand. But (2) there are the social and
historical contacts which are made by all these creative types with the
past and with the present; all the big rich thick stream of human
history and effort, giving them, however little they may recognize it,
the very initial concepts with which they go to their special contact
with reality, and which colour it; supporting them and demanding from
them again their contribution to the racial treasury, and to the
present too. Thus the artist, as, well as his solitary hours of
contemplation and effort, ought to have his times alike of humble study
of the past and of intercourse with other living artists; and great and
enduring art forms more often arise within a school, than in complete
independence of tradition. It seems, then, that the advocates of
corporate and personal religion are both, in a measure, right: and that
once again a middle path, avoiding both extremes of simplification,
keeps nearest to the facts of life. We have no reason for supposing that
these principles, which history shows us, have ceased to be operative:
or that we can secure the best kind of spiritual progress for the race
by breaking with the past and the institutions in which it is conserved.
Institutions are in some sort needful if life's balance between
stability and novelty, and our links with history and our fellow-men,
are to be preserved; and if we are to achieve such a fullness both of
individual and of corporate life on highest levels as history and
psychology recommend to us.
The question of this institutional side of religion and what we should
demand from it falls into two parts, which will best be treated
separately. First, that which concerns the character and usefulness of
the group-organization or society: the Church. Secondly, that which
relates to its peculiar practices: the Cult. We must enquire under each
head what are their necessary characters, their essential gifts to the
soul, and what their dangers and limitations.
First, then, the Church. What does a Church really do for the
God-desiring individual; the soul that wants to live a full, complete
and real life, which has "felt in its solitude" the presence and
compulsion of Eternal Reality under one or other of the forms of
religious experience?
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