This is not quite
correct. I think that there are certain elemental truths
within our grasp which ask for no faith for their
acceptance, and which are sufficient to furnish us with
a practical religion, having so much of reason in it that
it would draw thinking men into its fold, not drive them
forth from it.
When we all get back to these elemental and provable
facts there will be some hopes of ending the petty
bickerings of creeds, and of including the whole human
family in one comprehensive system of thought.
When first I came out of the faith in which I had
been reared, I certainly did feel for a time as if my
life-belt had burst. I won't exaggerate and say that I
was miserable and plunged in utter spiritual darkness.
Youth is too full of action for that. But I was
conscious of a vague unrest, of a constant want of
repose, of an emptiness and hardness which I had not
noticed in life before. I had so identified religion
with the Bible that I could not conceive them apart.
When the foundation proved false, the whole structure
came rattling about my ears. And then good old Carlyle
came to the rescue; and partly from him, and partly from
my own broodings, I made a little hut of my own, which
has kept me snug ever since, and has even served to
shelter a friend or two besides.
The first and main thing was to get it thoroughly
soaked into one that the existence of a Creator and an
indication of His attributes does in no way depend upon
Jewish poets, nor upon human paper or printing ink.
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