Whitman, as I have elsewhere said, was swayed by two or three great
passions, and the chief of these was doubtless his religious passion. He
thrilled to the thought of the mystery and destiny of the soul.
"The soul,
Forever and forever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer than
water ebbs and flows."
He urged that there could be no permanent national grandeur, and no worthy
manly or womanly development, without religion.
"I specifically announce that the real and permanent grandeur of these
States must be their Religion,
Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur."
All materials point to and end at last in spiritual results.
"Each is not for its own sake,
I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for Religion's
sake."
All our ostensible realities, our art, our literature, our business
pursuits, etc., are but fuel to religion.
"For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential
life of the earth,
Any more than such are to Religion."