But let me once
be persuaded that all these heart-awakening utterances of human
hearts--of men of like faculties and passions with myself, mourning,
rejoicing, suffering, triumphing--are but as a Divina Commedia of a
superhuman--O bear with me, if I say--Ventriloquist;--that the royal
harper, to whom I have so often submitted myself as a MANY-STRINGED
INSTRUMENT for his fire-tipt fingers to traverse, while every several
nerve of emotion, passion, thought, that thrids the flesh-and-blood
of our common humanity, responded to the touch,--that this SWEET
PSALMIST OF ISRAEL was himself as mere an instrument as his harp, an
AUTOMATON poet, mourner, and supplicant;--all is gone,--all sympathy,
at least, and all example. I listen in awe and fear, but likewise in
perplexity and confusion of spirit.
Yet one other instance, and let this be the crucial test of the
doctrine. Say that the Book of Job throughout was dictated by an
infallible intelligence. Then re-peruse the book, and still, as you
proceed, try to apply the tenet; try if you can even attach any sense
or semblance of meaning to the speeches which you are reading.
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