When Coleridge was a boy of eight, his father on a starry night
explained to him the size and number of the heavenly bodies
with their vast movements. He looked for surprize and wonder
in the boy. But the poet tells us that he felt no special
wonder, because his mind, through long, happy days of reading
fairy-stories, had grown accustomed to feelings of the vast, and
to having criteria for belief other than those of his senses.
Literature accustoms the mind to feelings of sublimity, wonder,
intricacy, and the constant workings of higher laws. These are
noble contributions to the religious consciousness.--WILLIAM
D. MACCLINTOCK, “Proceedings of the Religious Education
Association,” 1904.
(1861)