The true material age is the
stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature
are granted, because they are ignorantly and insolently repelled,
instead of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference
between the ancient fiction of the mad braggart defying the
lightning and the modern historical picture of Franklin drawing it
towards his kite, in order that he might the more profoundly study
that which was set before him to be studied (or it would not have
been there), happily expresses to my mind the distinction between
the much-maligned material sages--material in one sense, I suppose,
but in another very immaterial sages--of the Celestial Empire
school. Consider whether it is likely or unlikely, natural or
unnatural, reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of
thought, and finding myself surrounded by such discovered wonders
on every hand, should sometimes ask myself the question--should put
to myself the solemn consideration--can these things be among those
things which might have been disclosed by divine lips nigh upon two
thousand years ago, but that the people of that time could not bear
them? And whether this be so or no, if I am so surrounded on every
hand, is not my moral responsibility tremendously increased
thereby, and with it my intelligence and submission as a child of
Adam and of the dust, before that Shining Source which equally of
all that is granted and all that is withheld holds in His mighty
hands the unapproachable mysteries of life and death.
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