I will not say much of that; still less will I mention any of the words
which good men and women who are of that way of thinking use towards God.
I should be sorry to hold up such language to blame, even if I do not
agree with it; and still more sorry to hold it up to ridicule from
vulgar-minded persons if there be any in this Church. All I say is, that
all which has been written since about this passionate and rapturous love
toward God by the old monks and nuns, and by the Protestant Pietists,
both English and foreign, is all in St Augustine better said than it ever
has been since. Some of the Pietist hymns, as we know, are very
beautiful; but there are things in them which one wishes left out; which
seem, or ought to seem, irreverent when used toward God; which hurt, or
ought to hurt, our plain, cool, honest English common-sense. A true
Englishman does not like to say more than he feels; and the more he
feels, the more he likes to keep it to himself, instead of parading it
and talking of it before men. Still waters run deep, he holds; and he is
right for himself; only he must not judge others, or think that because
he cannot speak to God in such passionate language as St Augustine, who
was an African, a southern man, with much stronger feelings than we
Englishmen usually have, that therefore St Augustine, or those who copy
him now, do not really feel what they say.
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