Preaching and Paganism

by Albert Parker Fitch

And in that more lie all his hopes of good,

Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood;

Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore;

Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest;

Nature forgives no debt and fears no grave;

Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest.

Man must begin; know this, where Nature ends;

Nature and man can never be fast friends.

Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!"

Religionist and humanist alike share this clear sense of separateness. Literature is full of the expression of it. Religion, in especial, has little to do with the natural world as such. It is that other and inner one, which can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell, with which it is chiefly concerned. Who can forget Othello's soliloquy as he prepares to darken his marriage chamber before the murder of his wife?