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RELIGION
even of the saint, is not perpetuated for ever with the full traces of the mode in which it was painfully acquired. In being swept away along with its possessor, it makes room for the fresh and total contemplative activity of new minds, no longer seamed and wrinkled by the hardships and accidents which attended acquisition.
While he smites, how can he but remember,
So he smote before, in such a peril.
When they stood and mocked, “Shall smiting help us?”
O’erimportuned brows becloud the mandate.
Carelessness or consciousness the gesture.
For he bears an ancient wrong about him. . . .
So he smote before, in such a peril.
When they stood and mocked, “Shall smiting help us?”
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O’erimportuned brows becloud the mandate.
Carelessness or consciousness the gesture.
For he bears an ancient wrong about him. . . .
In the gaze of the rising generation all this is wiped away. It comes, or should come, delighted and unwearied, to seize directly and vigorously on its actual merits and in its total contours the treasure that is offered to it, and so
