No one can have less interest than I have in claiming poetical
privileges for the clergy; and no one, I believe, is more thoroughly
convinced that the standard which society prescribes for us, and to
which we ordinarily conform ourselves, instead of being too severe
and lofty, is far too secular and grovelling. But I apprehend the
limitations of this kind which are imposed upon us are themselves
exceedingly secular, betokening an entire misconception of the
nature of our work, proceeding from maxims and habits which tend to
make it utterly insignificant and abortive. If a man confines
himself to the utterance of his own experiences, those experiences
are likely to become every day more narrow and less real. If he
confines himself to the defence of certain propositions, he is sure
gradually to lose all sense of the connection between those
propositions and his own life, or the life of man. In either case
he becomes utterly ineffectual as a teacher. Those whose education
and character are different from his own, whose processes of mind
have therefore been different, are utterly unintelligible to him.
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