The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Sermons
There pertains thus to the eye a kind of advance-guard of discovery
that gives us a feeling of the unknown wonders that are away in
the corner of the sky, quite before the eye is able to take strong
visual hold upon them. And, as I say, it makes the universe larger
and richer, and not only that, it lays out for us a sort of shadowy
avenue along which the eye is encouraged to let its vision run out
on experimental and adventurous trips with at least some prospect of
being able to return from such excursions laden with more or less of
the products of discovery. To people who sometimes lift their eyes
above the level of the ground, such evasive hints as distant things
give of themselves are very provocative; they tend to make the eye
alert, to tax it to its utmost endeavor, to fill it with inquiry,
and an interrogation is always the outrider of discovery.
And that is the way always that things of whatever kind become known
to us, by standing as closely as ever we can to the edge of the
known and then feeling our way--not seeing our way, but feeling our
way--as far as we can over the edge of the known out into the vast
space where, in almost, not quite, utter indistinctness, hovers the
unknown. That was the process by which Columbus discovered America.
He discovered it by sailing along the line of his presentiment.
He reasoned toward it as far as he could and then supplemented
the insufficiency of reason by a generous contribution of faith;
possest, that is, of so long a reach of thought and so roomy a
conception of God's world that there seemed space in it for another
Europe, which ought somehow to be there in order to fill that space.
And the way in which the discoverer who sailed from Palos discovered
a new geographical world is the way in which we have to approach
the suspected contents of the religious world, suspected events
of Christian history. The sense, the mastering sense, of outlying
spiritual territory too obscure for us to say a great many definite
things about it, but too certainly there to be denied or ignored,
is a necessary prerequisite to all successful use or observance of
such a day as we are celebrating. A man whose thoughts stop short at
the point where those thoughts cease to move in perfect light can
celebrate Easter as a formality, but never as a reality.
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