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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Yet we , yielding homage to their undecaying grace , feel all the influences of a deeper genius ; wander through over-archmg groves , resonant with echoes from beyond the grave , and , borne in thought beyond all material splendoiuy
Breathe in worlds To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil . The poet who stands on the firm rock of truth , beneath the unclouded heavens , enjoys all the giorjr of past superstitions without losing his higher
taste for the true and the eternal . He gazes , with no ungentle eye , on the path which man has trodden , yet loses not the joy of a stainless sky . Above the rolling mist of error he yet surveys it ,, in all the noble and majestic images of domes , spires and temples into which it is wreathed , and in the glorious colours which the sun reflects upon its
masses . We can conceive of no belief so fitted to the offices of a poet as the Christian faith , in the free goodness of God , and the universal brotherhood of man . To
him 'Who rejoices in these glorious traths , / revelation appears like Jacob ' s ladder , reaching from earth to heaven , and the angels are seen ascending and descending upon it . He Aloes not confound the glory of religion with the mysteries which it has not yet penetrated , but sees , in the august regions of super-human reality , where all before was dark , the true light shining from afer , disclosing , a clear path to the gate of heaven , / and casting its dimmer light on the vast objects which lie near to the track which it makes
plain , by its , own brightness , to the humblest of mortals . He draws in his golden urn from the waters of that brook which , flows " fast by the oracle
of God . " > f He is in this world , but not of it , except that his heart beats' in earnest sympathy with all that is human . jfife looks not on the grandeur , of antiquity with scorn , in the absurd belief that all virtue has been confined to a few , and that the heroes , saijes and patriots of o | d times were but masses of living corruption . He regards not men aa Mvmed from each other by invisibly mjirjts of eternal life < w death , joy or wgi * isli . VL $ perceives ^ . 8 ouV ofigoo < to ^ JJe flights to discover the nestW-places
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and retired holds of virtue in the soul ; to trace out , in the most erring , those lineaments of the Divine image which can never totally , be . defaced , / and to dwell on the indications of nobleaeess , even in perverted natures , which prove the high destiny for which ultimately they shall be fitted . He remembers
not his own childhood as the season when he was under the wrath and curse of God , but as the time when heaven lajr near him ; as the sacred beginning of an immortal Hfe ; as the blesseS space when glorious dreams and goodly
visions , which hereafter shalh appear assured realities , encircled his un- * tainted soul . To him " the > splendour in . the grass , the glory in the flower , ?* which then gleamed on him , yet sparkle . The operations of his imagination almost anticipate the glorious
changes through which his species wilL pass when assoiled from the impurities of time . To him already " pain and anguish and the wormy grave ** are almost " shapes of a dream . " He listens delighted to the first notes of that universal harmony , which shalL hereafter burst on his ear in full
chorus . To him " the burthen of the mystery of all this unimaginable world is -lightened" by a deep insight into all the sources of . joy , and a lively sense of that eternal state in which the star * dowings of evil shall be dispersed for ever . He feels that his genius is a thing " immortal as himself" and
anticipates its progress , not amidst scenes , where agony and sin hold for ever a divided empire with blessedness and peace , but in the sweet and unclouded light of divine love , gradually extending its beams over scenes long overcast with dark shadows , and revealing new and immortal trophies of those conquests which Good wall not cease to achieve ,, until it shall attain its final * victory . T ~ N . T .
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Vindication of the Lenin ' s Mead Congregation , Bristol . 99
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Bristol , _ S « r , 4 January 22 , 1820 . npHERE appeared in the Number JL of your Repository for September , [ XIV . 538 ^ 540 , 1 an article entitled " Irregularities in Public Worship , " and great was my astonishment at finding that it was intended as a reproof to the respectable aociety e £ which I am a member , and whioh . has hitherto maintained the highest cha *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1820, page 99, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2485/page/35/
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