'It no less takes two to deliver the game of Duty from trivial pretence
and give it an earnest interest. How can I look up to myself as the
higher that reproaches me? issue commands to myself which I dare not
disobey? ask forgiveness from myself for sins which myself has
committed? surrender to myself with a martyr's sacrifice? and so
through all the drama of moral conflict and enthusiasm between myself
in a mask and myself in _propria persona_? How far are these
semblances, these battles in the clouds, to carry their mimicry of
reality? Are we to _worship_ the self-ideality? to _pray_ to an empty
image in the air? to trust in sorrow a creature of thought which is but
a phenomenon of sorrow? No, if religious communion is reduced to a
monologue, its essence is extinct and its soul is gone. It is a living
relation, or it is nothing: a response to the Supreme Reality. And
vainly will you search for your spiritual dynamics without the Rock
Eternal for your [Greek] _pou sto_'--JAMES MARTINEAU, Essays iv. 282,
_Ideal Substitutes for God_.
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