The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experienceof Hungary and Madame de Chantal are full of a sort of reveling inhospital purulence, disagreeable to read of, and which makes us admireand shudder at the same time.So much for the human love aroused by the faith-state. Let menext speak of the Equanimity, Resignation, Fortitude, and Patiencewhich it brings.“A paradise of inward tranquillity” seems to be faith’s usual result;and it is easy, even without being religious one’s self, to understandthis. A moment back, in treating of the sense of God’s presence, Ispoke of the unaccountable feeling of safety which one may thenhave. And, indeed, how can it possibly fail to steady the nerves, tocool the fever, and appease the fret, if one be sensibly consciousthat, no matter what one’s difficulties for the moment may appearto be, one’s life as a whole is in the keeping of a power whom onecan absolutely trust? In deeply religious men the abandonment ofself to this power is passionate. Whoever not only says, but feels,“God’s will be done,” is mailed against every weakness; and the wholehistoric array of martyrs, missionaries, and religious reformers isthere to prove the tranquil-mindedness, under naturally agitatingor distressing circumstances, which self-surrender brings.The temper of the tranquil-mindedness differs, of course, accordingas the person is of a constitutionally sombre or of a constitutionallycheerful cast of mind. In the sombre it partakes more ofresignation and submission; in the cheerful it is a joyous consent.As an example of the former temper, I quote part of a letter fromProfessor Lagneau, a venerated teacher of philosophy who latelydied, a great invalid, at Paris:—“My life, for the success of which you send good wishes, will bewhat it is able to be. I ask nothing from it, I expect nothing from it.For long years now I exist, think, and act, and am worth what I amworth, only through the despair which is my sole strength and mysole foundation. May it preserve for me, even in these last trials towhich I am coming, the courage to do without the desire of deliverance.I ask nothing more from the Source whence all strength cometh,and if that is granted, your wishes will have been accomplished.”169169 Bulletin de l’Union pour l’Action Morale, September, 1894.258