Are not these men in their degree
worshippers?
Take the feeling that is expressed in those beautiful lines of Byron.
We do not think of Byron as a religious nature, but certainly he had in
him the heart of worship when he could write such thoughts as these:
"'Tis midnight.
On the mountains brown
The cold, round moon shines deeply down;
Blue roll the waters; blue the sky
Seems like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright.
Whoever looked upon them shining
And turned to earth without repining,
Nor wished for wings to flee away
And mix with their eternal ray?"
And Wordsworth says he feels a Presence that "Disturbs him with the joy
of elevated thought, A sense sublime of something far more deeply
interfused."
And so you may run all through the poets, these simply as hints,
specimens, every one of them worshippers, touched by the beauty, glory,
uplift of the natural world.
And then pass to the next stage, and come to the worship of the human,
to the admiration of the highest and finest qualities that are
manifested in the lives of men and women. Who is there that is not
touched and thrilled by some story of heroic action, of heroic self-
sacrifice, of consecration to duty in the face of danger and death? And
no matter what this manifestation of human goodness may be, if you can
be thrilled by it and lifted by it, then you have taken another step up
this ladder of worship which leads you into the very presence chamber
of the Divine.
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