The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human NatureJames, William
ReligionComparative
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature
James, William
Conversion; Experience (Religion); Philosophy and religion; Psychology, Religious; Religion
“By this divine light, then,” says Elwood, “I saw that though I
had not the evil of the common uncleanliness, debauchery,
profaneness, and pollutions of the world to put away, because I
had, through the great goodness of God and a civil education, been
preserved out of those grosser evils, yet I had many other evils
to put away and to cease from; some of which were not by the
world, which lies in wickedness (1 John v. 19), accounted evils,
but by the light of Christ were made manifest to me to be evils,
and as such condemned in me.
“As particularly those fruits and effects of pride that discover
themselves in the vanity and superfluity of apparel; which I took
too much delight in. This evil of my doings I was required to put
away and cease from; and judgment lay upon me till I did so.
“I took off from my apparel those unnecessary trimmings of lace,
ribbons, and useless buttons, which had no real service, but were
set on only for that which was by mistake called ornament; and I
ceased to wear rings.
“Again, the giving of flattering titles to men between whom and me
there was not any relation to which such titles could be pretended
to belong. This was an evil I had been much addicted to, and was
accounted a ready artist in; therefore this evil also was I
required to put away and cease from. So that thenceforward I durst
not say, Sir, Master, My Lord, Madam (or My Dame); or say Your
Servant to any one to whom I did not stand in the real relation of
a servant, which I had never done to any.
“Again, respect of persons, in uncovering the head and bowing the
knee or body in salutation, was a practice I had been much in the
use of; and this, being one of the vain customs of the world,
introduced by the spirit of the world, instead of the true honor
which this is a false representation of, and used in deceit as a
token of respect by persons one to another, who bear no real
respect one to another; and besides this, being a type and a
proper emblem of that divine honor which all ought to pay to
Almighty God, and which all of all sorts, who take upon them the
Christian name, appear in when they offer their prayers to him,
and therefore should not be given to men;—I found this to be one
of those evils which I had been too long doing; therefore I was
now required to put it away and cease from it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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