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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
us from the pulpit or the press , is to stir vp our minds by way of remembrance . Yet this is rio proof that mines of hidden wisdom do not lie under ground which has been daily trodden for centuries , or that beneath the " lowest deep" to which philosophy has dived , a lower depth ' may not exist , concealing treasures which are yet destined to enrich mankind . No sudden revelations , no astonishing discoveries of religious or moral truth
need , perhaps , be anticipated ; but the heavenly wisdom which has dawned on the hearts of men may be expected to make a further progress , even in this state of being , towards the perfect day . Accordingly , we are occasionally sensible of an increase of light ; and objects which before were believed to be perfectly familiar to us , appear with some enhanced beauty of form or
colouring , because an added ray from the sun of truth has reached them . We daily read and hear truths which we before firmly believed , and are sometimes tired of arguments which , however sound , have been so long allowed and acted upon , that they have lost the power of awakening and interesting the attention . Within our own hearts , meanwhile , we feel a conviction that much that is both true and new remains to be said , and that
subjects which have been treated a thousand times will yet admit of further illustration and development ; and when we find the work performed , when we discover that another has felt ss we do , with more power to make his convictions useful toothers , the gratification is great ; and we can forgive the press for sending forth a deluge of literature in "the true modern taste , " if it becomes the means of introducing us now and then to ideas and feelings more valuable than some that have been thought worthy to descend to us from the olden time .
There is much truth in Coleridge ' s satire on books " in the true modern taste ; videlicet , either in skipping , unconnected , short-winded , asthmatic sentences , as easy to be understood as impossible to be remembered , in which the merest common-place acquires a momentary poignancy , a petty , titillating sting , from affected poirit and wilful antithesis ; or else in strutting and rounded periods , in which the emptiest truisms are blown up into illustrious bubbles , by the help of film and iriftatioh . * Aye , ' quoth the delighted reader , ' this is sense ! this is genius ! This I understand and admire !
I have thought the same , a hundred times myself * " Books which merely reflect back the thoughts of common minds are of little value ; but there are works of modern date which disclose the feelings of the human heart , and and at the same time reveal the source of those feelings , mark their present course , and trace their future issues ; books which first interest us by a faithful picture of our emotions , or a successful appeal to our experience , and then do for us what we cotflcl not do for ourselves—teach us how to use our
powers , to remed y present weakness and guard against future perils . Such books are eminently valuable . Sudh are trfe writings of Channing ; such are Foster ' s admirable essays ; such , in different Ways , are Sheppard ' s '* ' Thoughts , preparative ' to private Devotion , " and the Valuable little work on the FbrmatibnandPtiblicitid J nof Opinions , * ' and many others , which , from their popularity , lead us tbhope ( bat '«<• the modern taste" is not wholly vitiated . Such , we will noto acfcl , fa the wttfk before us . The stibject is interesting to all , 3 s it contains an appeal to universal experience . 'Every reader will prdbably say to himself mote than once fn the course 6 ? bertfsifl , «• I fraHte hit the stfme a hunctfed times myself . " The . number who have thought the same , who have thought as clearly and as profitably , is perhaps very amall . Every mind is liable to the weakness of
Untitled Article
418 Natural History of Enthusiasm .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 418, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/50/
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