New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-03-12

light, Illuminating my inward vision, AM
bringing the dimly guessed-at into full
clearness before my SOUL And when
once experienced how the human soul Cal
believe, undertook to read the gospels .
if they also had been written by an I'M
known man. I banished .as well as
could the thought that they had bee1
miraculously dictated to the Apostles b.
the Holy Ghost, confirmed by the coun
ellis, and recognized by the Church as tn
highest authority Of the only saving faith
and then I first learned to understand tn
meaning of Christian faith and Christia,
revelation"
SIT is surprising" said I, ''that theo
logians have not destroyed for us all re
ligion, and they will do it, if believers d.
not earnestly confront them and say
Thus far shalt thou go but no further.
Every Church must have its ministers
but there has never been religion in thu
world which the priests, whether Brah
Minis, Lamas, Shamans, Bones, Phari
sees or Scribes, did not spoil. They
quarrel in language that to nine-tenths
of the community is incomprehensible,
and instead of allowing themselves to be
inspired by the gospels and thereby in.
spring others, they accumulate long evi.
dences that the gospels must be true be-
cause they were written by inspired men.
But this is mere make-shift for their
own unbelief And how do they know,
then, that these men were miraculously
inspired, without ascribing to themselves
still more miraculous inspiration? They
therefore extend the gift Of inspiration to
the Fathers of the Church also-yes,
they even ascribe it to the decisions of
the majority of the councils; and then
the question arises, how do we know that
of fifty bishops, twenty-six we're inspired
and twenty-four not, SO that finally they
make the last desperate step and say that
through the laying on Of hands inspria-
ton and Instability dwell in the Fathers
of the Church until the present time; so
that infallibility, majority and inspira-
ton make all inward conviction, all de-
votion, all reverent examination super
Aous. Yet, in spite of all these interme-
date links, the first question returns in
all its simplicity, How can B know that
A was inspired, if B is not just as much
inspired as A or still more so? 1t is
more difficult to know that A was in
spired than to be inspired oneself"
Ihave never comprehended it so clearly
before, said she. shut I often felt how
hard it must be to know if any one loves,
as there is no sign that may not be coun-
terfeited. And then I thought that no one
could know it, except one who himself
loves; and that he will believe in the love
of others only as far he believes in his
own. And as with the gift Of love so it is
with the gift of the Holy Ghost. Those
upon whom it descends-they hear q
sound from Heaven as Of mighty wind,
and see the cloven tongues as of fire.
But others are amazed and confused, or
they mock and say; these men are full of
new wine Yes, as told you it is to the
Theologia Germanica I owe it, that I
learned to have faith in my belief, and
what would appear to many as a def
cheney, that strengthened me most;
namely that the old master never thinks
about strictly proving his sayings, but
scatters them as sower, in the hope that
some seed will fall on good ground, and
bear fruit a thousand-told, so also our
Divine Master never tried to prove his
teachings; for the full consciousness of
truth scorns the form of argument"
YES" interrupted her, for I could
not help thinking of the wonderful chain
Of evidence of Spinoza's Ethics, ':and so
the anxiety of Spinoza's arguments give
me the impression that this acute thinker
did not believe with his whole heart in
his own teachings, and for that very
reason felt the need of carefully strength
ening every mesh of the net. Yet" l con-
tinued, II must confess that I do not
share your great admiration for ''Theolo-
gia Germanica, although I owe to it many
an impulse forward; but I find in him a
lack of humanity and poetry, and, on the
whole, of zeal and reverence for the real.
All the mysticism of the fourteenth Gen.
fury is wholesome as preparation, but it
first reaches its solution in the God
blessed and God-encouraged return into
real life, as We find it with Luther. Man
must recognize his own impotence; he
must feel that of himself he is nothing;
that his existence, his beginning, and his
eternal life are rooted in the supernatural
and incomprehensible. This is the return
to God, that never, it is true, reaches its
aim while on earth, but leaves in the soul
a heavenly longing that never ceases. But
man can not wholly set aside the creation,
as the mystics would. Although created
out of nothing; that is to say, only
through and out of God, man can not by
his own power return to this nothing,
and the standardization of which Tauler
SO often speaks is hardly better than the
'nervana,' or extinction of the human
soul of the Buddhists. Tauler says that
if he, out of intense reverence and love
for the Supreme Being, should become q
nullity, he would wish to sink before His