A few words may be added upon what was said of enthusiasm by one who was generally looked upon as the special enthusiast of his age.  How much the usual meaning of the word has altered since the middle of the last century, is well illustrated by the length at which he argues that ‘enthusiasm’ ought not to be applied only to religion, and that it should be used in a good as well as in a bad sense.[575] It is ’a miserable mistake,’ he says, ’to treat the real power and operation of an inward life of God in the birth of our souls, as fanaticism and enthusiasm.’[576] ’It is the running away from this enthusiasm that has made so many great scholars as useless to the Church as tinkling cymbals, and all Christendom a mere Babel of learned confusion.’[577] Instead of being blameable, the enthusiasm which meant perfect dependence on the immediate inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit in the whole course of life was one, he said, in which every good Christian should endeavour to live and die.[578] But he was too wise a man not to warn his readers against expecting uncommon illuminations, visions, and voices, and revelations of mysteries.  Extraordinary operations of the Holy Spirit granted to men raised up as burning and shining lights are not matters of common instruction.[579] Many a fiery zealot would be fitly rebuked by his words, ’Would you know the sublime, the exalted, the angelic in the Christian life, see what the Son of God saith, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.”  And without these two things no good light ever can arise or enter into your soul.’[580]

John Byrom, whose life and poetical writings will be found in Chalmers’ edition of the British poets, has already been slightly referred to.  His works would demand more attention at this point, were they not to a great degree an echo in rhyme of William Law’s prose works.  One of his longest poems was written in 1751, on the publication of Law’s ‘Appeal,’ &c., upon the subject of ‘Enthusiasm.’  It may be said of it, as of several other pieces he has left, that although written in very pedestrian verse, they are worth reading, as containing some thoughtful remarks, expressed occasionally with a good deal of epigrammatic force.  A few of his hymns and short meditations rise to a higher poetical level.  They are referred to with much praise by Mr. G. Macdonald,[581] who adds the just remark that ’The mystical thinker will ever be found the reviver of religious poetry.’  Like Law, John Byrom was a great admirer of Behmen.  He learnt High Dutch for the purpose of studying him in the original, and, nowise daunted by the many dark parables he found there, paraphrased in his halting rhymes what Socrates had said of Heraclitus:—­

    All that I understand is good and true,
    And what I don’t, is I believe so too.[582]