SPIRITUAL INSIGHT OF MATTHEW AKNOLD 215 



of his earlier essays from Greek poetry sets in emo- 

 tional, poetic form the thought which is at the bot- 

 tom of all his religious criticisms and teachings : 

 " ! that my lot may lead me in the path of holy 

 innocence of word and deed, the path which august 

 laws ordain, laws that in the highest empyrean had 

 their birth, of which Heaven is the father alone, 

 neither did the race of mortal man beget them, nor 

 shall oblivion ever put them to sleep. The power 

 of Grod is mighty in them, and groweth not old." 



No doubt there has grown up in the church a 

 usage which assigns to the terms " spiritual insight," 

 " spiritual-mindedness," etc., a narrow and exclusive 

 meaning, and which would deny them to all persons 

 who do not accept the popular view of Christianity, 

 or who lived in the pre-Christian ages. One of the 

 most successful so-called religious books of the day, 

 Drummond's " Natural Law in the Spiritual World," 

 narrows the spiritual world to the creed of the Scotch 

 Presbyterian church. Unless you believe this creed, 

 you are separated from the spiritual world by the 

 same gulf that separates the organic from the inor- 

 ganic ; and in the tone of the press and pulpit of 

 the churches generally there is an assumption of 

 usufruct of spiritual and divine things. In the 

 creed of the true-blue Calvinistic church it is held 

 that a person can have no insight into spiritual 

 things till his eyes are specially opened by an act 

 of divine grace. Then things become straight and 

 plain to him which before were dark and crooked. 

 This may: be so, but I trust the good brethren will 



