And as for the
nature of this truth, 'it is true so soon as it is felt.' When the
Savoyard Vicar, after accepting all the destructive criticism of
religious dogma, turned to the Gospel story with the immortal 'Ce n'est
pas ainsi qu'on invente,' he was only anticipating what Jean-Jacques was
to say of himself before his death, that there was a sign in his work
which could not be imitated, and which acted only at the level of its
source. We may call Jean-Jacques religious because we have no other
word; but the word would be more truly applied to the reverence felt
towards such a man than to his own emotion. He was driven to speak of
God by the habit of his childhood and the deficiency of a language
shaped by the intellect and not by the soul. But his deity was one whom
neither the Catholic nor the Reformed Church could accept, for He was
truly a God who does not dwell in temples made with hands. The respect
he owed to God, said the Vicar, was such that he could affirm nothing of
Him. And, again, still more profoundly, he said, 'He is to our souls
what our soul is to our body.
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