We
may well be of another opinion, if we think the roots of life are not
in consciousness but in nature, which intelligence alone can reveal;
but we must agree that in life itself intelligence is a superficial
growth, and easily blighted, and that the experience of the vanity of
the world, of sin, of salvation, of miracles, of strange revelations,
and of mystic loves is a far deeper, more primitive, and therefore
probably more lasting human possession than is that of clear
historical or scientific ideas.
Now religious experience, as I have said, may take other forms than
the Christian, and within Christianity it may take other forms than
the Catholic; but the Catholic form is as good as any intrinsically
for the devotee himself, and it has immense advantages over its
probable rivals in charm, in comprehensiveness, in maturity, in
internal rationality, in external adaptability; so much so that a
strong anti-clerical government, like the French, cannot safely leave
the church to be overwhelmed by the forces of science, good sense,
ridicule, frivolity, and avarice (all strong forces in France), but
must use violence as well to do it. In the English church, too, it is
not those who accept the deluge, the resurrection, and the sacraments
only as symbols that are the vital party, but those who accept them
literally; for only these have anything to say to the poor, or to the
rich, that can refresh them.
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