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IV. INTERPRETATIONS.
159

20. Quite the most beautiful sign of the power of true Christian-Catholic faith is this continual acknowledgment by it of the brotherhood—nay, more, the fatherhood, of the elder nations who had not seen Christ; but had been filled with the Spirit of God; and obeyed, according to their knowledge, His unwritten law. The pure charity and humility of this temper are seen in all Christian art, according to its strength and purity of race; but best, to the full, seen and interpreted by the three great Christian-Heathen poets, Dante, Douglas of Dunkeld,[1] and George Chapman. The prayer with which the last ends his life's work is, so far as I know, the perfectest and deepest expression of Natural Religion given us in literature; and if you can, pray it here—standing on the spot where the builder once wrote the history of the Parthenon of Christianity.

21. "I pray thee, Lord, the Father, and the Guide of our reason, that we may remember the nobleness with which Thou hast adorned us; and that Thou would'st be always on our right hand and on our left,[2] in the motion of our own Wills:

  1. See ' Fors Clavigera,' Letter LXI., p. 22.
  2. Thus, the command to the children of Israel "that they go forward" is to their own wills. They obeying, the sea retreats, but not before they dare to advance into it. Then, the waters are a wall u to them, on their right hand and their left.