nnot
possibly be its _ultimate word_ to man. Either there is no Spirit
revealed in nature, or else it is inadequately revealed there; and (as
all the higher religions have assumed) what we call visible nature, or
_this_ world, must be but a veil and surface-show whose full meaning
resides in a supplementary unseen or _other_ world.

I cannot help, therefore, accounting it on the whole a gain (though it
may seem for certain poetic constitutions a very sad loss) that the
naturalistic superstition, the worship of the God of nature, simply
taken as such, should have begun to loosen its hold upon the educated
mind. In fact, if I am to express my personal opinion unreservedly, I
should say (in spite of its sounding blasphemous at first to certain
ears) that the initial step towards getting into healthy ultimate
relations with the universe is the act of rebellion against the idea
that such a God exists. Such rebellion essentially is that which in
the chapter I have quoted from Carlyle goes on to describe:--

"'Wherefore, like a coward, dost thou forever pip and whimper, and go
cowering and trembling? Despicable biped!... Hast thou not a heart;
canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom,
though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes
thee? Let it come, then, I will meet it and defy it!' And as I so
thought, there rushed like a stream of fire {45} over my whole soul;
and I shook base Fear away from me forever....

"Thus had the Everlasting No pealed authoritatively through all the
recesses of my being, of my Me, and then was it that my whole Me stood
up, in native God-created majesty, and recorded its Protest. Such a
Protest, the most important transaction in life, may that same
Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological point of view, be fitly
called. The Everlasting No had said: 'Behold, thou art fatherless,
outcast, and the Universe is mine;' to which my whole Me now made
answer: 'I am not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee!' From that
hour," Teufelsdroeckh-Carlyle adds, "I began to be a man."

And our poor friend, James Thomson, similarly writes:--

"Who is most wretched in this dolorous place?
I think myself, yet I would rather be
My miserable self than He, than He
Who formed such creatures to his own disgrace.

The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou
From whom it had its being, God and Lord!
Creator of all woe and sin! a