Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/65

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Dr. Stiggins:

Judah and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Amorites, which will make people feel very good. Then some very nice gentlemen from America will come in and say they come from God's own country, which is almost as good as heaven, and all the angels and the ministers will sing the Glory Song, and then everybody will have tea, with lots of jam."

Do you know that I could scarcely answer my little son? I do not know whether it is a father's partiality, but it seemed to me that in these few simple words, bubbling up from the child's heart, there was more spiritual truth than in all the works of foreign Romanist poets whom it seems the fashion to praise nowadays. I have looked into the works of Dante—you know the book to which I allude—a book oddly, and I cannot but think irreverently, entitled "Divine Comedy." The title, with its theatrical associations, could not fail to jar upon me, as you may imagine, but when I came to examine the work itself I confess I was astonished that such a book should be so openly and widely

60