The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-01-07

"The knowledge of the truth''-that
is, the true knowledge or perfect"
knowledge, as it is sometimes rendered.
When we read in the context of form
of godliness without the power, it sug-
gests that there may also be a form of
knowledge without the power, without
the vital element. This impression is
strengthened by such declarations:
fThis is life eternal that they might
know thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Chr st whom thou hast sent. +"
81 count all things but loss for the ex-
cellency Of the know Wedge of Christ. Il
know in whom 1 have believed" That
must be peculiar kind Of knowledge
in which eternal life consists. There
is something more in such knowledge
than lies upon the surface.
Perhaps an illustration will serve us.
A certain man takes Tennyson's I'm
Memoriam." He confines his atten-
tion to the binding, and may be able
to tell you the kind and cost of the
material; may look at the designs
upon the cover, observe the red
edges, spell out the gilt letters upon
the back; may note the proportions of
the book, its length, breadth and
thick ness. He finds that the volume
has distinctive features of color, form,
and binding; the words sin Memoriam"
stamped across the lids or back. With
these things he is acquainted. He has
mastered the externals, but who will
say that he knows the "In Memoriam?"
Let another man take the volume
who will go little farther. He
opens it and finds that the contents
are verse. That verse is of a pecu-
liar structure. The rhymes are per-
feet or imperfect. He passes judg-
ment upon the engravings. He even
reads, but does it in the spirit of a
cold and unsympathetic critic. He ana
lyzss the sentences until he has ana
lyzed the beauty out of them, clips the
figures until he has shorn them of their
strength. His researches go little
farther than those of the one who
proceed I'D him, but who will say that
this man has any knowledge of Ten
nyson's masterpiece except in lower
sense and in limited measure?
A third person TAX IS the poem, but
does not stop to admire the binding or
pick the stanz as apart. He plunges at
once into the thought of the author.
He follows him from the first stunning
shock of his grief, through all the mu-
tations and phases Of his sorrow, till
the triumph comes. He rises from the
perusal saying, 81 have found thoughts
here that have made me better. L
feel nobler for this book,-more like a
man and more like doing m anly things.
1t has made an impression upon my
soul that the wasting years cannot
efface. Its influence will go with me
through life and help to shape my
character. 1t has taught me the
truth
with him who sings
To one clear harp in diverse tones.
That men may rise on steppi ng-stones
OF their dead selves to higher things
This man kno,DS the book. He has
rea ,hed in the truest and highest sense
an insight into the sin Memoriam.
He and he only can be said to
know the poem into whose soul its
star-liks truths have shone. He knows
it who has lessed by it, whose
aspirations ha directed up
ward by it, whose enthusiasm for the
good and beautiful and ennobling it
has kindled into blaze. He knows it
into whose character its thoughts have
become woven, whose life it has exalted,
who, under the touch of its transform
ing wand, has been changed into a
better and grander man.
This is knowledge in the highest
and truest sense. 1t is difficult to find
terms that will adequately describe it.
We may call it, perhaps, the know
ledge of inspiration that which
rouses and slim mates the mind into
which it enters; which not only in
structs the head, but sets the heart n
fra. We may call it the knowledge of
appropriation, that which makes the
thoughts and principles it grasps a
part of the soul, twisting item as
strands into the fabric of life and char
acter. We may call it the knowledge
of assimilation, that which shapes
us into the likeness of the good and
beautiful we apprehend. This is the
Knowledge not of form but of power.
To use the phrase of De Qdincey, sit
gives exercise and expansion to our la
tent capacity of sympathy with the in
finite, where every pulse and each sepa-
rate influx is step upward step
ascending as upon a Jacobs ladder
from earth to mysterious attitudes
above the earth. OF this let
every one be assured, that he owes to
the imprisoned books which he has
read many thousand more of emo.
lions than he can consciously trace
back to them. Dim by their origination,
these emotions yet arise in him and
mold him through life. like the for