ardour of devotion. It transfigured and transformed the souls of men with the passion that inspired the faith of the early Church. When the Wesleys and Whitefield went through the kingdom with the Gospel that had come to them, the divine grave, open in the ages of faith and sealed in the ages of doubt, was open once more; and the churches which they quickened recovered the strong and simple faith of the Church of the Resurrection. But the divine fire died down. The revelation that had inspired one generation became the orthodox tradition of the next. What once had been a living faith degenerated, in part if not altogether, into a thing of words, phrases, conventions. Dawson saw the surface, though he did not see the heart; and he hated and despised what he saw. He struck for reality—for reality in every part of life; for reality in religion, which is the crown of life. He knew that no generation can thrive merely on the religious experience of those who have gone before; that to keep the soul strong and sound, a man must get his spiritual food day by day. So was it with the manna which the children of Israel gathered in the wilderness, " the corn of heaven," as the Psalmist calls it " when man did eat angels' food." It was of the day, and for the day; if kept to the morrow, it " bred worms and stank." That is a law, an abiding law, of the spiritual life. Dawson's revolt against the Evangelical tradition was due not to any want of faith, but to his conviction that religion, if it is to be of any avail, must be intimate, spontaneous, natural, and direct. And this should be reckoned to him for righteousness.
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