His Views and Principles
authority under him, to submit himself to all his governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters, to order himself lowly and reverently to all his betters, and to do his duty in that state of life in which it had pleased[1] God to call him.
From such a man as this it would, of course, be as absurd to expect our modern mental and moral activities as it would be to search for such qualities in the mind of a recluse or monk of the Dark Ages; and can we not understand how to these simple peasants, whose days were spent perhaps in a round of dreamy and mystic meditation, the world must have put on the appearance of a weird phantasmagoria? To these men, watching their sheep in the solitude of the Syrian hills, a very ordinary phenomenon might appear to be the opening of the heavens, and the excited imagination of the visionary would readily fill in all appropriate details. We may not dogmatise, we may not positively assert that here lies the explanation
- ↑ There is a slight mistake here, but I give the phrase in the words of Dr. Stiggins.—A. M.
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