University of Virginia Library

AGAINST NARROW-MINDED SCEPTICISM.

There is a backwardness and cold distrust
Of Doubt, which wants the common medium
And faculty for comprehending truth;
For the worst blind are, those who will not see,
And these not even Christ himself could cure:
While some, by wish to find the truth, endowed
With faith in that same truth, from love thereof
Draw an heart-felt conviction, far beyond
The subtlest and most logical result
Of cold, distrustful reason: scarce convinced
In self-despite: his pride reluctantly
Yielding a forced assent, that never bears
The good fruit grafted on the heart's belief:
Which, from the Vital, is itself so too—
And Faith and Reason, though they seem to go
To divers points of the circumference,
Meet in one centre, which doth reconcile
Them both: and whence the circle, truly drawn,
Touches th' extremes of both, and joins in one.
And Reason's compass, to the utmost stretched,
With Faith runs even: for beyond that point
Where Reason works, God himself never steps!
Therefore God rather by the babe's mouth speaks,
By the simplicity of ignorance,
Than by the proud philosopher's vain lip,
The wisdom of the flesh, which needs must prove
That God exists; as if to feel him, and,
By feeling him, to be godlike, that is
To be himself in us, were not the best
Of proofs! which, not content to feel him so,
So grandly in the heart, nor capable
Of thinking great enough to feel him there,
Sublimely, palpably, must needs reduce
That godlike consciousness of him into
A Syllogism, into terms precise,
“Major and minor,” and that too instead
Of the grand primal argument of all,
The heart, the sublime Syllogism, which
He himself framed to hold the living proof;
Mightiest philosopher! how unlike those
Who in their reasonings forget Him, who
Is the First Cause: the one grand “Major term,”
Without which there is neither reasoning,
Nor sense, nor truth! men who would shut God up
In verbal definitions, as if He
Were but a problem for philosophers
To calculate or square; the while He is
A circle, which the straight lines of their wit
Scarce touch on one least point, and then run off,
And lose themselves in His infinity,
Poor shooting stars! but these would mystify
His simple Word: so simple, because it
Is so, so true: so grand, because it is
So simple, that a little child needs but
A heart to comprehend it, needs but do
His Word to prove it! yea! they mystify
His sublime Word, because they have not learnt
To think yet grand enough of Him, nor yet
To comprehend his works; that they may have
Wherewith to exercise their wit and skill
Of fence, their tricks and sleights of intellect,
Their quips and quibbles, and perplex the mind
With vain, unprofitable doubts, on points
To disputation indispensible,
As to salvation needless: for that lies
In being godlike, and in doing it;
And, if we feel ourselves godlike, need we
Thy Syllogisms then to tell us that
We are so, or to make our feelings real?
The tear within the eye, the swelling heart,
These are our proofs, and others need we none!
Then keep your Syllogisms, keep them for
Your Humes and Gibbons! men of the long head,
But narrow heart, who saw but half the truth,
And took the lesser half, which they alone
Beheld, to be the whole—short-sighted men!
Who saw but the half-moon, and thought it ne'er
Could be at full—meanwhile, the moon it grew,
In spite of them, and their dull arguments,
And gathered light, from its far hidden source,
And filled the heav'ns and earth, so godlike still;
And shone upon the nations, who, by doubt
Still unperplexed, upon their sublime way,
Untroubled, had moved on, towards God, and all
Things worthy of that God, and o'er the graves
Of these same wilful men, dispersing there
The darkness which themselves had sought to make!
These are the genuine Atheists, who, while
Acknowledging a God, do all they can
To neutralize their own acknowledgment;
Who make not godlike truths from that belief
To flow, as water from the living well,
But, having found the water, shut it up:
Who trammel up the consequence, and God
Admitting, by the admission God destroy
To all intents and purposes—who stand
Still doubting of all things, and nothing do,
Nothing affirm: but, weighing in their scales
God and the World, let neither of the two
Preponderate, and so reduce them both
To nothing, for to act man must affirm—
And to act godlike, must believe in God,
Believe that hè the Godlike is and does!
Then keep your syllogisms, keep them for
Such men as these are! who, when they have proved
With these all that they can, have proved alone
That they felt not the Godlike, God! that he
Existed not to them; else would their lips
Have glowed, and bosoms kindled at his name,
As mine do even now, though far beneath
Them in vain intellect! but that is no,
No reason under heaven why we should
Not feel him living-most, in our own hearts,
For, if we feel him, then is he quite near,
Yea! in us! should God for such reasons not
Exist to us? because he has not yet
Been into mood and figure brought, by rule
Exact of Logic, into major Term
And minor, as 'tis set down in the book,
And well approved! or should the thought of him,
For this, be less to us, whom he has made
To think and do the Godlike, than unto
The flower of the field: which, knowing nought
Of Gibbons and of Humes, fulfills, in its
Own silent wise, a godlike mission too,
Untroubled by the shadow of a doubt?
Then leave us but our feelings and the God
Within our breasts, we ask no more than this,
And, with this, there is nought, methinks, to ask!
This is the godlike way of proving God!
Then let all prove him so; yea! let all be
Godlike in thought and deed: for so long as
They are godlike, they must believe in him,
To be so, for without Him they are not!