Why was this?
was it all fond prejudice,--an absurd clinging to old associations?
A little self-examination enabled me to reply, that it was no ill-grounded feeling or ghost of past opinions; but that my religion always had been, and still was, a _state of sentiment_ toward God, far less dependent on articles of a creed, than once I had unhesitatingly believed.

The Bible is pervaded by a sentiment,[1] which is implied everywhere,--viz.

_the intimate sympathy of the Pure and Perfect God with the heart of each faithful worshipper_.

This is that which is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, German Pantheists, and all formalists.

This is that which so often edifies me in Christian writers and speakers, when I ever so much disbelieve the letter of their sentences.