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Untitled Article
impression of what is thus inconsistent and heterogeneous can be eventually favourable to any system whatever ; or whether , like the wits of the Roman citizens in Coriolanus , * their consent of one direct way would not be at once to all the points of the compass ? ' we reply that is not so , because we firmly believe it . Men do not go to works of fiction to learn the principles of their belief ; they are taught us by very different works from
that' Where , taught by Phcebus , on Parnassian cliffs The Pythian Maid unfolded Heaven * s decrees /
But we assert , and think we are amply borne out in asserting , that the aggregate—the collective impression—of these earthly but glorious productions , is decidedly favourable to the development of devotional feeling , and even to the fixture of the great principles of religion . If there is an evil alchymy which can extract poison from aliment , there is no less a good one which can extract aliment even from poison . The poets of paganism themselves may , in one sense , be said to serve the cause of Monotheism , where they little designed it . They not only exhibit to us the beauty of truth by placing it in contrast with error , but , by the direct or implied recognition of something superior to their gods , they refer us to the One , who 4 is above all , and through all , and in all / The same may be said of the use to which our own poets may be applied , as teaching a theology such as no individual among them would have acknowledged , and which yet is the only key that will reconcile and harmonize this department of their writings . To carry along their pages the power and the habit of generalizing and abstracting , is to subject them to the touch of Ithuriel ' s spear : what is false is discovered and expelled ,
like the Evil One ; what is true remains , like the sleeping Eve in her beauty . / The theological opinions of Milton were , in many respects , objectionable ; but no human composition , excepting those of the Bible , has done more effectual service to religion ( in the great sense of the word ) than the inspirations of his own divine Urania . The hermit-bard of Olney , the devout and susceptible Cowper , was the believer of a creed which made his life a martyrdom ; but we aver , nevertheless , that his devotional feelings must be in a pitiable state , who can open his works without feeling their sacred power . And , what is true of the works of each separate poet , is true , in a more comprehensive sense , of the collective works of e the laurel-browed' of our country . Truth predominates so much over error , and right feeling over wrong , that he , who reads them with a view to profit by them , may make them a beautiful commentary upon the revealings of the Bible . We well remember , when we were young , —for we did not always wear spectacles , neither was our hair always of * the silver grey /~< -the extreme difficulty which we had to interpret some
Untitled Article
488 On the Connexion between Poetry and Religion .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1832, page 488, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1816/page/56/
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