"
Nothing is more common in the pages of religious biography than
the way in which seasons of lively and of difficult faith are
described as alternating. Probably every religious person has
the recollection of particular crisis in which a directer vision
of the truth, a direct perception, perhaps, of a living God's
existence, swept in and overwhelmed the languor of the more
ordinary belief. In James Russell Lowell's correspondence there
is a brief memorandum of an experience of this kind:--
"I had a revelation last Friday evening. I was at Mary's, and
happening to say something of the presence of spirits (of whom, I
said, I was often dimly aware), Mr. Putnam entered into an
argument with me on spiritual matters. As I was speaking, the
whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from
the Abyss. I never before so clearly felt the Spirit of God in
me and around rue. The whole room seemed to me full of God. The
air seemed to waver to and fro with the presence of Something I
knew not what. I spoke with the calmness and clearness of a
prophet. I cannot tell you what this revelation was.
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