EMOTION AN AID TO RELIGION.
By Independent
AN intellectual age has assumed, too hastily, as we think, that powerful emotion hinders the perception of truth, and fills the mind with passion, when its whole energy should rather be absorbed in dispassionate observation. This view is brought forward to tell against religion, which is so much a matter of the heart and where the sentiments and affections play so important a part. We are bidden to distrust the views of life, truth, and duty which open to us in exalted moments of spiritual communion. There is every difference between a mind filled with passion and disqualified for reasonable action, and that state of high emotion which is awakened by the kindling effect of the truth which the mind is endeavoring to apprehend. Isaac Newton described eloquently the glowing enthusiasm amid which he pursued his investigations. It is fair to doubt whether, with a cold mind, he could have made the intellectual spring which was required to raise him above all other minds and lead the world's intellect on the path of discovery. So, in ordinary matters, the utmost that any one can do will be accomplished when emotion adds strength to his powers or raises them to their highest point of achievement. Why should we distrust the aid which awakened feeling brings to religion? Is divine truth so open and so easily attained that a cold mind can trust itself to explore it thoroughly, or even sufficiently? Shall we deny that those deep emotions which the contemplation of religious themes and the cultivation of religious sympathies awaken will raise the power of the mind to grasp spiritual realities and classify its intellectual atmosphere? The indulgence of mere sensation may drug the higher powers of the soul; but, without emotion, it is vain to hope to raise the whole man to the limit of his ability or to bring the totality of his capacities into operation. Of all subjects in the world, then, we are not to contemplate religion with the pure white light of reason alone. It requires aid from an awakened and glowing heart. When the spirit descends and love glows, the eye enjoys its most "precious seeing." But when the heart is cold, and the spirit fled, and the mind turns passionless to these themes, then is the time to doubt yourself.—Independent.