Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Verse Musings on Nature, Faith, and Freedom (1889). I. Faith. II. What is Religion?John Owen (18361896)
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In legal maxims hard and cold,
By legal minds together brought,
From ethic teachers new and old.
Of God or man, the world a life;
By various diff’ring systems wrought,
Inducing hate and wordy strife.
Kindling spontaneous in the breast,
The soul’s instinctive blind desire
To feel its God and be at rest.
Perception of the Infinite,
The pure heart’s pulse, the only sign,
To mark its being or prove its might.
In thing without, in thought within,
Is pure Religion’s hallowed ground,
The temple we must worship in.
Through all the universe made known,
This is the soul’s divinest dower,
This is Religion—this alone.