But when a widow whose husband had left property, would
acknowledge no obligation to discharge his debts, it came to be
rather more than a whim. Evidently the religion of many of them
was as yet of a poor sort--precisely like that of the negroes,
whose devotion so far outstrips their morality.
If there had but been some one of themselves to teach that the true
outlet and sedative of overstrained feeling is right action! that
the performance of an unpleasant duty, say the paying of their debts,
was a far more effectual as well as more specially religious mode
of working off their excitement than dancing! that feeling is but
the servant of character until it becomes its child! or rather,
that feeling is but a mere vapour until condensed into character!
that the only process through which it can be thus consolidated
is well doing--the putting forth of the right thing according to
the conscience universal and individual, and that thus, and thus
only, can the veil be .withdrawn from between the man and his God,
and the man be saved in beholding the face of his Father!
"But have patience--give them time," said Mr Graham, who had
watched the whole thing from the beginning. "If their religion is
religion, it will work till it purifies; if it is not, it will show
itself for what it is, by plunging them into open vice. The mere
excitement and its extravagance--the mode in which their gladness
breaks out--means nothing either way. The man is the willing,
performing being, not the feeling shouting singing being: in the
latter there may be no individuality--nothing more than receptivity
of the movement of the mass.
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