The English and German climates and that of northern France possess, among many others, this one little beauty of uniting the mysteries of positive with those of natural religion—in celebrating the symbolical resurrection of the human soul in that of the Crucified, at the time of the actual resurrection of the "living life" of nature.
SPIRITUAL RELIGION
Religion consists in truth and virtue, that is, the permanent, the forma efformans, in the flux of things without, of feelings and images within. Well, therefore, does the Scripture speak of the Spirit as praying to the Spirit, "The Lord said to my Lord." God is the essence as well as the object of religion.
A SUPPOSITION Wednesday, April 17, 1805
I would not willingly kill even a flower, but were I at the head of an army, or a revolutionary kingdom, I would do my duty; and though it should be the ordering of the military execution of a city, yet, supposing it to be my duty, I would give the order—and then, in awe, listen to the uproar, even as to a thunderstorm—the awe as tranquil, the submission to the inevitable, to the unconnected with myself, as profound. It should be as if the lightning of heaven passed along my sword and destroyed a man.
ENTHUSIASM
Does the sober judgement previously measure out the banks between which the stream of enthusiasm shall rush with its torrent-sound? Far rather does the stream itself plough up its own channel and find its banks in the adamant rocks of nature!