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Untitled Article
tongues , which was ( Jone by the Arab before the sacred stone of the Caaba * and by the Runic Scald at the granite altar of Odin . The converse of this is equally indisputable—that poetry exerts an influence upon religion . In its simplest form , this position is simple indeed ; for who will require to be informed , or convinced , that religion * poetry has an influence upon religion ? But
there is a broader sense , jn which the proposition is to be understood , and in which this influence , though equally real , is not equally apparent . Besides the many exquisite and magnificent passages , in which the poets frequently express their thoughts and feelings respecting religion in general , or any particular branch or system of religion , it may be asserted with truth , that all good and genuine poetry , of every degree and kind , has , in the
mass and altogether , in the collective and aggregate impression which it leaves upon the mind ^ a tendenpy to open and prepare it for the sublime conceptions and rrjQre solemn emotions of religion . Great and elevated poetry has , ^ . nd imparts , a- sympathy with whatever is great and elevated ; and most of all , in consequence , with that which is most so . The mind is always struggling , like the plant in the shade , to work its way , by a vague yet glorious instinct , to something which is not ' of the earth /—to the reality of the dream of light by which it is hallowed and haunted . Poetry communicates to this instinct ; a new and noble impulse , without supplying the full vent of the soul . It is the melon in the desert which does not satisfy the pilgrim , but gives him to
strength to find his w ^ y the remoter fountain . Falling in with our natural aspirings after something indefinite and infinite , something immeasurably beyond and above us , it fans and feeds the sacred fire , without defining the creed or supplying the altar . We may have failed almost completely , in attempting to explain what we feel : but we cannot at least be misunderstood , when we
repeat the simple proposition , that poetry at large , no less than that department of it which is exclusively devotional , is calculated , by the collective impression which it leaves upon the mind , to produce an effect the most favourable to . the rise and growth of religion . The inundation passes away ; but , in the sediment which it deposits there are th , e elements of a harvest , which will tell that the Nile has been there .
An objection may here arise , which it will be as well to dismiss at the threshold . Of the poets , in , general , a great part have been misbelievers , full of erroneous opinion , and abounding in fallacious doctrine . Of our dvyn poets in particular , it may be said , that some wrote under the impression of the ancient Catholic
superstitions ; that some have written apparently with very little regard to what they wrote ; and that , diverse as qre the colours ojf sectarian opinion , there are few seqts so obscure , as not to possess a poetical choregqs , whose verses they quote in defence or exposition of their creed . It may be asked whether the collect ^
Untitled Article
On the Connexion between Boftry and Religion , 487
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1832, page 487, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1816/page/55/
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