Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/152

152THE HALLIG.

fection depends upon language, shall this faculty ven-
ture so far as to prepare a place for the Almighty in
this our dust, that we may have, hold, and search him
out, as something to be discussed, as one to be meas-
ured by the measure of our conceptions, to be bound
within the limits of our comprehension ? Should we
not rather conclude beforehand that, if he desired to
make himself known to us and to be our God, he
would choose another method ? This method, then, is
faith ; by it he manifests himself to us, and through it
we come to him ; this is the only language in which
heaven and earth may converse together, and we dis-
solve this communion, and ourselves forget, and teach
others to forget, this speech, when we seek to bring the
divine within the sphere of our own vision by the same
means which we use to comprehend the earthly."
  "Are you not speaking of his being, his attributes,
his government, in your character of theologian ?"
  "As I speak of the spiritual in view of the material,
of its indivisibility, its immortality, its invisibility, and
of its manifestation by faith. I never attempt to make
my hearers conceive of the soul as a naked idea. So
also of God. In our sermons we call him Creator,
Preserver, and Ruler ; we point out all the manifesta-
tions of him in nature, in the guidance of our earthly
destinies, in faith, in the conscience of men and in rev-
elation ; but in so doing we only prepare the way for
him into the hearts of men ; our sermons do not aspire
to be the way. Indeed, if God himself had not al-
ready trod the path before, all our smoothing and
straightening would never carry him thither. And it is
here I think that philosophy is in error. She sets her-