English philanthropist, made too sweeping a statement about this, but
one can see the basis for his judgment: "Nothing beside ill-humor,
either natural or forced, can bring a man to think seriously that the
world is governed by any devilish or malicious power. I very much
question whether anything beside ill-humor can be the cause of
atheism." At least one may be sure that where ill-humor habitually
reigns, vital faith in God is made impossible.
After full acknowledgment, therefore, of the momentous intellectual
problems of belief, we must add that there is a _moral qualification
for faith in God_. So great a matter is not achieved by any sort of
person, with any kind of habitual moods and tempers. There are views
which cellar windows do not afford; one must have balconies to see
them. When Jesus said that the pure in heart are blessed because they
see God, he was not thinking merely, perhaps not chiefly, of sexual
impurity as hindering vision. He was pleading for a heart cleansed of
all such perverse, morose, and wayward moods as shut the blinds on the
soul's windows. He knew that men could not easily escape the sense of
God's reality if they kept their vision clear. On elevated days we
naturally think of Spirit as real, and see ourselves as expressions of
spiritual purpose, our lives as servants of a spiritual cause. When
one habitually dwells in these finer moods, he cannot tolerate a world
where his Best is a transient accident. _He must have God, for faith
in God is the supreme assertion of the reality and eternity of man's
Best._ Any man who habitually lives in his finest moods will not
easily escape the penetrating sense of God's reality.
VI
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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