Catholic cathedral and Protestant meeting-house, the costly temples of New York and the campmeetings in Western woods, where men worship "In that fane, most catholic and solemn, Which God has planned." Thus the hour cometh, and now is, when the world shall be full of the knowledge of God, and when the whole wide earth shall be the temple of the Deity, in "A cathedral, boundless as our wonder; Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply; Its dome the sky." CHAPTER IX. INSPIRATION AND ART IN ALL RELIGIONS. § 1. Inspiration in its most general form. § 2. Different kinds of Inspiration. § 3. Religious Inspiration. § 4. Inspiration of the Bible. In lower Religions. Inspiration as Frenzy. Possession and Self-possession. § 5. The Bible compared with the Vedas and Koran. § 6. Peculiarity of the Inspiration of the New Testament. § 7. Art the child of Religion. Egyptian Architecture. § 8. Buddhist Architecture. § 9. Jewish and Christian Architecture. § 10. Mohammedan Art. 11. Greek Art. § 12. Religion in Painting and Poetry. WE § 1. Inspiration in its most general form. E begin by considering inspiration in general. Man must have a capacity for inspiration, otherwise he could not be inspired. This is a human faculty, therefore common to all. There is more of it in some men than in others; those who have the most of the faculty are prophets, seers, or men of genius. Men are inspired in regard to other kinds of truth, as well as in regard to religious truth. Thus we speak familiarly of an inspired poet or an inspired artist. Inspiration in general is an order, of which religious inspiration is a genus. Inspiration, considered in the largest sense, is the sight of inward truth, a truth which is seen within the mind, in distinction from the truth which comes to us from without through the senses. All our knowledge is of three kinds: that which we perceive outwardly through the senses; that which we perceive inwardly in the mind itself through consciousness; and that which being thus taken in, is worked up by the reflective faculties. The substance of all truth comes to us from without or from within; we can only by thinking give it more distinct form. We all know that ideas come to us from within the mind, without any effort of ours. The poet, the artist, the inventor, when the course of his thoughts is checked by some obstacle, stops, waits, looks in, looks up, for an inspiration. Many of our best thoughts visit us in this way unexpectedly, and take us by surprise. John Locke, certainly no enthusiast, invented a Common-place Book, and advised all students to keep such a book. He said that they ought to write down in it the ideas which came to them thus, when they were walking or conversing, as these were often the best, a kind of seed corn which would unfold into the most valuable results. If you read the biographies of great inventors, discoverers, poets, artists, you will often find it recorded that the germinal ideas of their whole lifework fell into their minds in this way. Thus we may say that not only Isaiah and Paul were inspired to teach religious truth, but that Newton was inspired to discover the law of gravitation, Phidias to carve the Olympian Jupiter, Columbus to discover America, Champollion to decipher Greek hieroglyphics, Milton to write the "Paradise Lost," and Mrs. Stowe to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" for "every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights." The truths seen by such thinkers were not inventions of theirs, but were realities shown them by God. § 2. Different Kinds of Inspiration. What then is the difference between these different kinds of inspiration? It is qualitative and quantitative. It is a difference of kind and of degree. It differs in kind according to the subject which occupies a man's thought and in which he is interested. The artist is interested in beauty; the poet and musician in poetry and music; the inventor in his invention, and each finds what he is looking for. The religious man is interested in religious truth, and to him that truth is inwardly revealed. The poet is haunted by some ideal beauty which he struggles to seize and embody in suitable forms. Columbus is haunted by the vision of a continent beyond the Western ocean. Newton sees dawning before his mind the approaching sun, which when it rises is to reveal the fundamental law of the outward universe. Neither of them can verify his vision, or convince others of its reality, until it is fully made known. They are all counted as visionaries till then. But when, by faithful work, the law of gravitation is found, the play of "Hamlet" written, the "Divine Comedy " finished, the Parthenon built, the electric telegraph discovered, when the Vedas take shape, when the prophecy is fulfilled, then the visionary suddenly appears before men as a genius, a seer, a great discoverer, a divine poet. § 3. Religious Inspiration. Among these inspirations religious inspiration is the highest, the most far-reaching, the most widely influential. Such inspirations embody themselves in the sacred books of the human race, the Vedas, the Zend-Avesta, the Koran. These constitute an order or a kingdom by themselves, and they all seem to possess an immortal life. They may greatly differ as to the quality and quantity of their inspiration, as we shall directly attempt to show. They are not preserved from error by a miracle. Sacred books are not necessarily infallible. But they live, they last, because they hold some truth which God has sent, and which man needs. "One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world has never lost." |