What is reverence?
It is the feeling produced when we stand in the presence of our ideal,
or of that which most nearly approaches it--that which is produced by
what we consider the highest degree of excellence.
The highest is reverenced, praised, and admired without qualification.
Each man reverences according to his nature, his experience, his
intellectual development. He may reverence' Nero or Marcus Aurelius,
Jehovah or Buddha, the author of Leviticus or Shakespeare. Thousands of
men reverence John Calvin, Torquemada, and the Puritan fathers; and some
have greater respect for Jonathan Edwards than for Captain Kidd.
A vast number of people have great reverence for anything that is
covered by mould, or moss, or mildew. They bow low before rot and rust,
and adore the worthless things that have been saved by the negligence of
oblivion.
They are enchanted with the dull and fading daubs of the old masters,
and hold in contempt those miracles of art, the paintings of to-day.
They worship the ancient, the shadowy, the mysterious, the wonderful.
They doubt the value of anything that they understand.
The creed of Christendom is the enemy of morality. It teaches that the
innocent can justly suffer for the guilty, that consequences can be
avoided by repentance, and that in the world of mind the great fact
known as cause and effect does not apply.
It is the enemy of spirituality, because it teaches that credulity is of
more value than conduct, and because it pours contempt upon human love
by raising far above it the adoration of a phantom.
It is the enemy of reverence. It makes ignorance the foundation of
virtue. It belittles the useful, and cheapens the noblest of! the
virtues. It teaches man to live on mental alms, and glorifies the
intellectual pauper. It holds candor in contempt, and is the malignant
foe of mental manhood.