8CIRNCRAXI> M 1 Y 613 



ing of a phenomenon which refuses the yoke of ordinary 

 al laws, I, for one, would not object to this 

 exercise of ideality. Amid all our speculative uncer- 

 tainty, however, there is one practical point as clear as the 

 day; namely, that the brightness and the uscfuln- 

 life, as well as its darkness and disaster, depend to a 

 great extent upon our own use or abuse of this miraculous 

 organ. 



Accustomed as I am to harsh language, I am quite 

 prepared to hear my " poetic rendering branded 

 "falsehood" and a "fib. The vituperation is unmerited, 

 for poetry, or ideality, and untruth are assuredly very dif- 

 ferent things. The one may vivify, while the other kills. 

 When St. John extends the notion of a soul to " souls 

 washed in the blood of Christ " does 1 Indeed, 



if the appeal to ideality is censurable, Christ himself ought 

 not to have es< isure. Nor did he escape it. "How 



can this man give us his flesh to eat?" expressed the 

 skeptical flouting of nnpoetic natures. Such are still 

 among us. Cardinal Manning would doubtless tell any 

 Protestant who rejects the doctrine of transubstantiation 

 lie " fibs" away the plain words of his Saviour when 

 he reduces " the Body of the Lord " in the sacrament to a 



figure of speech. 



Though misuse may render it grotesque or insincere, the 



idealization of ancient conceptions, when done consciously 



and above board, has, in my opinion, an important future. 



We are not radically different from our historic ancestors, 



and any feeling winch affected them profoundly requires 



only appropriate clothing to affect us. The world will not 



v relinquish its heritage of poetic feeling, and meta- 



will be welcomed when it abandons its pretensions 



to "scientific discovery and consents to he ranked as a kind 



of poetry. " A good symbol," says Kmerson. ' 



missionary to persuade thousands. das, the I 



the Koran, are each remembered by its happiest figure. 



is im more welcome gift to men thai! . mbol. 



They assimilate themselves to it. deal with it in all ways, 



and it will last a hundred years. Then ..-w genius 



and brings another." Our ideas < d the soul arc 



usly subject to this symbolic mutation. They are not 



v were a < II not be 



tury hence what they aro now. Sm-h ideas ft 



