For, as Sir Thomas Browne says in his solemn English, 'there is surely a piece of Divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.'
The long winter of materialistic science seems to be breaking up, and the old ideals are seen trooping back with something more than their old beauty, in the new spiritual spring that seems to be moving in the hearts of men.
After all its talk, science has done little more than correct the misprints of religion. Essentially, the old spiritualistic and poetic theories of life are seen, not merely weakly to satisfy the cravings of man's nature, but to be mostly in harmony with certain strange and moving facts in his constitution, which the materialists unscientifically ignore.
It was important, and has been helpful, to insist that man is an animal, but it is still more important to insist that he is a spirit as well. He is, so to say, an animal by accident, a spirit by birthright: and, however homely his duties may occasionally seem, his life is bathed in the light of a sacred transfiguring significance, its smallest acts flash with divine meanings, its highest moments are rich with 'the pathos of eternity,' and its humblest duties mighty with the responsibilities of a god.
[DEATH AND TWO FRIENDS]
A DIALOGUE
(To the Memory of J.S. and T.C.L.)
PERSONS: SCRIPTOR AND LECTOR.
[This dialogue was written originally as a rejoinder to certain criticisms on a book of mine entitled, The Religion of a Literary Man—Religio Scriptoris—hence the names given to the two 'persons.' It was written in March 1894, before an event in the writer's life to which, erroneously, some have supposed it to refer.]
LECTOR. But do you really mean, Scriptor, that you have no desire for the life after death?
SCRIPTOR. I never said quite that, Lector, though perhaps I might almost have gone so far. What I did say was that we have been accustomed to exaggerate its importance to us here and now, that it really matters less to us than we imagine.