I cannot see beyond the horizon; but within the natural horizon am I to make an unnatural new horizon for myself? I cannot be in two places at once; shall I therefore refuse to visit them at different times?
This doctrine may indeed lead to one conclusion; but it can lead justly to one only, and that I think is a very harmless one—namely, that when we have done all, we are unprofitable servants; when we have tried all things, what we held fast is not the entire truth; when we have seen all we can, there is still more that we cannot do.
Thus far I am most content to accept it. But it is no excuse to the Italian for refusing to study the religious views of Englishmen, nor to the Unitarian for believing that Calvinism is nonsense; nor to any one for refusing to think.
It is very true that, speaking generally, to a certain extent, we must all of us be of the religion of our fathers; we are so whether we like it or not; whether we say we are, or say we are not. It is very true, nevertheless, that we cannot refuse to know, when we are told on good authority that there are many more Buddhists in the world than Christians.
And it appears to me that it is much more the apparent dispensation of things that we should gradually widen, than that we should narrow and individualise our creeds. Why are we daily coming more and more into communication with each other, if it be not that we learn each other’s knowledge and combine all into one? I feel more inclined to put faith in the currents of the river of things, than because it runs one way to think I must therefore pull hard against it to go the other.
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THE POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, sometime Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. New and Enlarged Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
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