Oh that it were seen as it deserves! But
how talk of abolition by _law_, and keep spirit-merchants
in the Church? [See _Friend_, vol. iv. page
232.]
_12th Mo. 11th_.--Letter to M.B.
* * * _Nothing_, I think, loses by its foundation
being tried. We see that in yet higher things it is needful
and right often to try whether principle is firm; and,
though sometimes we may tremble lest faith should fall
in the trial, perhaps it would be more just to fear lest
the trial should merely show it already to have fallen.
What thou sayest about laying aside reasoning is very
true; but how hard to do so! Saul's armor doubtless it
is, as says the little tract. How easy, comparatively, to
let any want go unsatisfied, rather than that imperious
reason which urges its claim with so many good pretences,
which tells us truth will always bear investigation,
and that if we cannot explain by our small faculties
experiences in which the highest mysteries are involved,
the experiences must have been fallacious! How different
is _this sort_ of voluntary and almost presumptuous self-investigation
from submitting all to the unerring touchstone!
It is, indeed, very instructive to observe that our
Saviour's rejoicing in spirit was not over the subjects of
some wondrous apocalypse, or over those endowed with
miraculous power, but over "babes;" and that in the
same way His lamentation was not that the Jews had
refused His offers of any thing of this kind, but that
they "would not" be "gathered" by Him as "chickens
under their mother's wing.
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