The Book of Akbar 3.1.7

3.1.7

When the communing with my heart had proceeded thus far, a resting-stage showed itself afar off to my bewildered mind, and my thoughts were pleasant for a while. My astonied heart was, it is true, saddened by the length and difficulty of the journey, but was cheered by the sound of the machinery of movement, and by the good tidings of eventual arrival. Suddenly the thoughtful foot of my boding spirit came upon a stone; for the praise of God does not consist in comprehending His perfect attributes and assigning them to His Essence; nor is it the reckoning up of His benefits which are without beginning or end, and by dint of these wares of new-fangled praise, thrusting oneself forward; nor should we regard praise as beyond human comprehension and so, stop short of the porch of thanksgiving; nor should we style self-culture the recital of the Divine praise, and growing weary-hearted at the darkness of the road and the distance of the goal, regard such self-deception as a gain, and with abandonment of thanksgiving, set about whatever the cheatery of the hour represent as our true aim. Rather the note of Praise is to lay this praise-loving, self-adorning, self-auctioning spirit on the threshold of service, at the base of supplication and humiliation and to cast it down from the arch of NOTE. The following passage was accidentally omitted. It should come in at p. 13, 1. 11, at the end of the second paragraph, and immediately after the word “thanksgiving.”