Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-07-29

in Protestant culture, the intellectual and the
| practical The Catholic idea and the Protest
ant idea can never, in religion, be theologi-
cally reconcied; yet, in social civilization, the
| influence of both come together, intercom-
| Inune, interpenetrate, and mutually receive
and give power. The Catholic idea allies
itself with grace and deepens into sentiment;
the Protestant idea allies itself with intellect,
with will, and becomes realized in knowledge
and activity. l, looking tolerantly on both,
can see in Catholicity and Professionalism that
which neither, from a polemlc aspect, can see
in the other. | can see deep spiritual sug-
gestiyeness in what is called the materialism
of Catholicity. l can see grand and entranc-
ing imagery in what is called the bare intel
lectuality of Professionalism. l can we'll I'M
dersrand the power which a ritual and ira
dluonai Christianity can exercise over the
soul as well as over the fancy and the heart.
l can profoundly feel how the poor man can
be lifted up by the cathedral dome, that
seems an image of the sky-hoW the music
that fills its ma estic spaces may draw him
from the grosser world and make his bosom
heaVe with q sense of heaven. | can well con-
ceive how the dullest man can carry away
affecting impressions from the services of a
pictured and Illuminated altar and how, in
the tolls of the day, III the visions of the night,
his mind may call back those sights and
sounds-hold communion through them with
invisible perfection, and gain from the relig-
lous inspiration that may brighten and con-
secrate his life. | know that sense, magma
ton, feeling belong to our nature, and that
therefore they must belong to religion. |
see that all creation is rich with glorious phe-
nOInena that arouse, delight, and satisfy the
spirit through the senses. If the heart is not
i ! / ,l,1l IL,
eye cannot open but to look on beauty, tho
ear cannot listen but to hear music, AMI
thought cahnot be awake but to be alive to
the infinite power with which it is encompass
ed. The ministries Of religion may surely be
made cOnsonant with the ministries OF nature,
and those sacred arts may be employed in the
service OF religion which typify, in their in
spired devisings, the sublimest and the love
hest works of God.
On the other side, can behold 8 solitary
Protestant, as he leans over the Bible, trans
latlng the letter into vision, and presenting
to the inward eye such images of wonder and
of glory as artists may indeed have conceived,
but which art has never executed. He sees
not only the patriarch asleep with the sky for
his canopy and the wilderness for his bed,
but he enters into the patriarchs dreams, |
gazes into the open heavens, beholds the |
angels that ascend and descend by the ladder, |
which, resting upon the earth, reaches up to |
the throne Of God He looks upon the maj
esty OF ancient Egypt; he witnesses the trag- |
edies Of its guilt and punishment. He stands !
Oh the border Of the Red Sea; ne sees pass
lge open between two walls OF water, which |
gives outlet to the hosts OF lsreal; he sees
these walls rush together in roaring crash
over the hosts of Egypt. He wanders through
he desert with emanclpated people, maryels
IT the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of
ire by night; is aWe-struck at the darkness
# Mount Sinai, and quakes in the presence
If its terrors. Then arise to his view the pic
ured history and life of the Hebrew nation
he wars of David-the power of Solomon
he glories OF Jerusalen-the successive
Genes in the awful drama of tragic prophecies
nd their tragic fulhllment. The New Tesla
nent crowds his brain with ideals of sanctity
nd of beauty, as the Old Testament crowds
with those of sublimity and might At
asst this imagination is lost in the mystic
rance Of the Apocalypse, that, with its stu
endous and terrific imagery, embraces all
uration, all space, all power, all existence, I
Il destiny. Has not this man. too, a pictorial
linistry-a medium through which his fancy 1
kindled into light, and opened to all that I
rand cathedral, magnificent in its riches and !
s pomp, with affairs mountains high, and
gifts in suns and stars, and priesthoods as I
III Is time, and liturgies Of inspiration chant a
/ for all humanity? If this man can make d
le letter live, has he not that in the book be- Il
re him which can call into exercise all within II
IN that is most primitively and deeply, as Ii
ell as spiritually and sublimely, artistic?