character; and these are not to be confused with their reflective
interpretations. Much of the difficulty in these matters comes from the
lack of a clear distinction between _beliefs_ and _creeds_.

Further, not only are the utterances of the heart prior to the
deliverances of the intellect in this sense, but it may also be admitted
that the latter can never do full justice to the contents of the former.
So rich is character in content and so complex is spiritual life, that
we can never, by means of reflection, lift into clear consciousness all
the elements that enter into it. Into the organism of our experience,
which is our faith, there is continually absorbed the subtle influences
of our complex natural and social environment. We grow by means of them,
as the plant grows by feeding on the soil and the sunshine and dew. It
is as impossible for us to set forth, one by one, the truths and errors
which we have thus worked into our mental and moral life, as it is to
keep a reckoning of the physical atoms with which the natural life
builds up the body. Hence, every attempt to justify these truths seems
inadequate; and the defence which the understanding sets up for the
faith, always seems partial and cold. Who ever fully expressed his
deepest convictions? The consciousness of the dignity of the moral law
affected Kant like the view of the starry firmament, and generated a
feeling of the sublime which words could not express; and the religious
ecstasy of the saints cannot be confined within the channels of speech,
but floods the soul with overmastering power, possessing all its
faculties. In this respect, it will always remain true that the greatest
facts of human experience reach beyond all knowledge. Nay, we may add
further, that in this respect the simplest of these facts passes all
understanding. Still, as we have already seen, it is reason that
constitutes them; that which is presented to reason for explanation, in
knowledge and morality and religion, is itself the product of reason.