Then came a listless vacuity, a tawdry dreaminess.
And this poor minister, who flattered himself that he had outgrown every
graceful and touching form with which human affection or human infirmity
had clothed the Christian idea, stumbled amid the rubbish of an effete
heathenism, with its Sibylline contortions and tripod-responses, which
the best minds of Pagan civilization found no difficulty in pronouncing
a delusion and a lie.
I knew Dr. Burge for one of those most useful instructors who will
patiently examine with the intellect what the instinct teaches them to
condemn. He seldom helped the doctrine he assailed by denying it such
facts as were true and such attractions as were real. He had cheerfully
accepted whatever reproach came to him from frequenting circles in the
attempt to see the mystery from the believers' point of view. I was not
surprised at finding him upon one of the back benches in the Town Hall.
"Nothing noteworthy," he said, as I joined him. "Only women have
spoken,--the excited nervous system careering without restraint,--no
spirits yet."
"They pretend inspiration, I suppose."
"Oh, yes; and it is not surprising that semi-educated people, ignorant
of analogous phenomena, should take the _omne ignotum pro magnifico_.
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