When Christ utters the precepts: "Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you, and persecute you," he gives for a
reason: "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in
heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." One
might therefore be tempted to explain both the humility as to
one's self and the charity towards others which characterize
spiritual excitement, as results of the all-leveling character of
theistic belief. But these affections are certainly not mere
derivatives of theism. We find them in Stoicism, in Hinduism,
and in Buddhism in the highest possible degree. They HARMONIZE
with paternal theism beautifully; but they harmonize with all
reflection whatever upon the dependence of mankind on general
causes; and we must, I think, consider them not subordinate but
coordinate parts of that great complex excitement in the study of
which we are engaged. Religious rapture, moral enthusiasm,
ontological wonder, cosmic emotion, are all unifying states of
mind, in which the sand and grit of the selfhood incline to
disappear, and tenderness to rule.
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