Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/156

156THE HALLIG.

  "Why do you give the name of feeling to that which
has so moved you at such periods ? I would rather call
it a sermon of Pentecost, which the Lord of heaven and
earth, in his mercy, sends to your weak faith. The
word feeling implies, beforehand, the idea of obscurity,
uncertainty, and instability ; we think of it as some-
thing belonging to ourselves, even something sensuous.
But you must remember what I have already said with
regard to the language in which God has chosen to re-
veal himself. Regard this religious excitement, this de-
vout solemnity within, as the voice of God, as you have
yourself compared its effect to that of some external in-
fluence, and you will give it more confidence. When
the breast swells as if heaved by a fresh breath of life,
when the frame trembles as if that too felt the presence
of Divinity ; when heartfelt tears gush from the eyes ;
when the soul is inundated by emotions in which she
feels herself so happy ; when the spirit breathes freely
and purely as if relieved from every bond and fetter —
why will we in such moments refuse to acknowledge —
deny that the Lord speaks ? How then shall the eter-
nal spirit manifest itself to the finite soul except by
taking it up into itself ? By this means it triumphs
over its clay covering, and generates emotions otherwise
foreign to the finite. The ambiguous expression, relig-
ious feeling, deprives this nearness and energy of the
Holy Spirit of all its worth for us, and of its influence
in illuminating, sanctifying, and blessing."
  "Maynot this devotional excitement and elevation be
a mere delusion, the consequence of some preconceived
idea of God, some false notion perhaps which we have
brought with us from our childhood ?"