There are temperamental types which never reach any conclusion by pure
reasoning; intuitions, emotions, and inspirations take the place of
intellectual processes. It would be the height of folly to attempt to
make such natures reduce their religion to syllogisms, or to ask them
to bring to the bar of the head all the findings of the heart.
The emotional nature does not comprehend the manner in which the
average mind must wait for its own light. These souls that move by
great tides often reach sublime heights. The world would be poor,
indeed, without their all-compelling enthusiasms, their glorious
visions, and their dominant convictions. But such ones must not forget
that there is no royal road to truth; that human nature is not cast in
one single, unvarying mold; diversity is not necessarily heresy.
There are other natures, not less necessary to the world, not less
glorious in their records of leaders, martyrs, and masters of men.
These are those that find truth by the slow steps of reasoning; that
seek the way of right, with hearts of reverence and feet of faith, in
the light of the faculties heaven has given them. They do not feel,
they do not understand the winds that, sighing round them, convey such
mighty meaning to other souls; they cannot buy progress at the price of
blindness. They are the intellectual type.
The conclusion that the emotional type must, after all, be the right
one is a common one. This is because it makes the most noise and the
most easily apprehended demonstration. And, therefore, some tell us
that the man who seeks to find the way of truth by the light of the
intellect must, without fail, wander into the pit of error; that the
only way to come to religious truth is to shut the eyes of the mind and
yield to emotion.
The thinker constantly is being warned that he cannot apprehend God
with his intellect; that he cannot see the way to heaven with the eyes
of reason. He is urged to give up the use of his head that he may
develop his heart. He even is told that faith is incompatible with
reason, and love with logic. So strong is the emphasis on this that he
is led to suspect that indolence is seeking to deify ignorance, and
that men whose intellectual faculties have atrophied by their
subjection to the emotional now are envious of those who retain the
power to think clearly, and would have them also deprived of these
powers.
Nothing could be more clearly opposed to the way of truth than the
notion that religion can be bought only at the price of reason, or that
the consequence of using the intelligence is the losing of the power of
affection for the divine, the good, and the true--of the warmth of
heart and feeling that often determine character and conduct.
If the faculties are God given they are given for working purposes. If
man has a mind and yet may not think concerning the deepest and highest
things of his own nature and destiny, then the giving of that mind or
the permitting it to develop is the most cruel mockery known to human
history.
But the simple law of nature that every faculty has some purpose, that
no power is without its duty, is the answer to all this. The mind is
as sacred as the heart; it is as much a sacred duty to think as it is
to aspire. There is nothing too holy for men to think about, to reason
about. The mind must serve the truth--must with reverence lead to
larger truth.
No man is religious who represses any of his reasoning faculties.
Every one of the higher powers must be brought to their greatest
perfection. Not by dwarfing but by developing themselves do men
glorify their Creator. Just as the finest tree in the forest speaks
most eloquently of the bounty and beauty of nature, so does the
gigantic intellect glorify the intelligence that ordered its being.
Fear not to think of sacred things; nothing is sacred because it is
mysterious; reverence does not dwell apart from reason. Faith does not
reach its perfection in the fool; it shines most glorious where wisdom
dwells. There still are the superstitious souls who confound darkness
with divinity; who cry aloud against the light of knowledge. But they
can no more stay the discovery of truth than the bats can hold back the
dawn.