We need not discuss whether all this should be called idealism—a name which would drive many clever people from its acceptance. Whatever it may be named, it is a faith which has brought to those who have confidently given themselves to it greater inward peace than is found in any more familiar creed. It needs but slight observation of life or of history to be convinced of this. And yet, I fear, most of my readers may be more inclined to say with King Agrippa: “Almost thou persuadest me,” little as Agrippa profited by the success he attained.
A German poet sums up the richness of this spiritual peace, which men like von Klinger exhibit, in lines which I thus slightly adapt:
“Outward life is light and shadow,
Mingled wrong and struggling right,
But within the outward trouble
Shines a healing, inward light.
Not to us may come fulfilment,
Not below our struggles cease,
Yet the heavenly vision gives us,
Even here, an inward peace.”