Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/267

Rh I have, in the course of the sketches of my journey, said sufficient about the peculiar merits and deficiencies of both churches—as they have appeared to me—to render it necessary further to touch on this subject, which, in order to be be fully expatiated upon would require more time and a larger capacity than I have at my command. I will take it for granted, my R——, that you, like myself, consider that there ought to be, that there ought to arise, a more perfect, a more universal church, which would, in a higher degree than either of these two, satisfy our innermost need for justice, goodness, truth, unity, perfection.

But what can authorize me, an ephemera of comparatively few years, to criticize these erections of centuries?—to require from these something more than they give? That is the question.

“I cannot help it!” I might reply. “The necessity for it lies within me; it is a thirst after the perfect! God give it to me!———But there is a reason for the thirst, the validity of which no one will deny.

“A life of virtue and happiness—the image of Paradise, which we all, more darkly or more clearly, bear in the depths of our own hearts.”—God's order and kingdom as in heaven so on earth, that is the heavenly view, which compels me, which, once beheld, once comprehended, makes it impossible for me to be satisfied with it in part, with it dim and imperfect—be then this (and so it is) my very dearest self. It is Thou who once revealed as the highest archetype, compellest me to seek, and long, and combat, until I can rest in a world perfected in Thee. It must not, it cannot be otherwise if we will be faithful to the highest within us.