This much is clear, that my life at
the time I am speaking of has remained in my memory only in its general
ordinary human aspect. It is true, however, that then, as always in my
later life, it was and ever has been very difficult to me to separate in
thought my inner life from my outer, and to give definite form and
outward expression to the inner life, especially as to religious
matters.
I dare not deny, that although the definite religious forms of the
Church reached my heart readily both by way of the emotions and by
sincere conviction, and cleansed and quickened me, yet I have always
felt great reluctance to speak of these definite religious forms with
others, particularly with pupils and students. I could never make them
so clear and living to a simple healthy soul as they were to myself.
From this I conclude that the naturally trained child requires no
definite Church forms, because the lovingly-fostered, and therefore
continuously and powerfully-developed human life, as well as the
untroubled child-life also, is and must be in itself a Christian life. I
further conclude that a child to whom the deeper truths of life or of
religion were given in the dogmatic positive forms of Church creeds
would imperatively need when a young man to be surrounded by pure and
manly lives, whereby those rigid creeds might be illuminated and
quickened into life.
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