Religious Feeling and Religious Thought
“One tiling have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple” — Ps. xxvii. 4.
There were two reasons why the Psalmist desired to dwell in the house of the Lord — he wanted to behold, and he wanted to inquire. Beholding and inquiring, the vision of the beauty and the study of the truth, make up together the perfect way. Without either of these our religion is a maimed religion. To behold the beauty without inquiring is mere sentiment, to inquire without beholding the beauty is mere criticism; perfect faith unites both. Yet there is an order in their union; the beholding of the beauty comes first. I cannot with any profit begin to inquire until I have begun to gaze; I cannot understand the reason until I have felt the power. Often have I marked these words of the Psalmist, “0 send out Thy light and Thy truth; let them lead me.” He asks for the light before the truth; he desires the beauty before the knowledge. So have I ever felt that it must be with me. I would not pray for truth until I have prayed for light; I would not ask to iuquire until I have learned to see. I feel that the house of my God is a house of mysteries. It has recesses which I cannot explore, it has secrets which I cannot fathom; but if I am allowed to gaze on its beauty I can afford to wait, if I am suffered to feel its splendour I can defer my right to search out its treasures.
0 Thou who art fairer than the children of men, suffer me before all things to feast mine eyes on Thee. I may not be able any more than Nicodemus to assign the proof of Thy mission, but help me, unlike Nicodemus, to see the kingdom of God. Clouds and darkness are still round about my intellect, and my understanding can only cry, “0 the depth;” but if Thou shalt open the eye of my heart I shall be independent of these. If Thou shalt suffer me to gaze on Thy beauty, I shall have
Thy light in anticipation of Thy truth, and in the strength of that light I shall go unto thine altar with exceeding joy. I would approach the problems of life with no other torch than thine; be Thou Thine own interpreter, in Thy light let me see light. I shall both hear Thee and ask Thee questions when I have caught a vision of Thyself; when I have beheld Thy beauty I shall inquire in Thy tabernacle.