Where religion itself is not the most important thing with the individual, all reasoning upon it must indeed degenerate into strifes of words, _vermiculate_ questions, as Lord Bacon calls them--such, namely, as like the hoarded manna reveal the character of the owner by breeding of worms--yet on no questions may the light of the candle of the Lord, that is, the human understanding, be cast with greater hope of discovery than on those of religion, those, namely, that bear upon man's relation to God and to his fellow.

The most partial illumination of this region, the very cause of whose mystery is the height and depth of its _truth_, is of more awful value to the human being than perfect knowledge, if such were possible, concerning everything else in the universe; while, in fact, in this very region, discovery may bring with it a higher kind of conviction than can accompany the results of investigation in any other direction.
In these grandest of all thinkings, the great men of this time showed a grandeur of thought worthy of their surpassing excellence in other noblest fields of human labour.

They thought greatly because they aspired greatly.
Sir Walter Raleigh was a personal friend of Edmund Spenser.

They were almost of the same age, the former born in 1552, the latter in the following year.

A writer of magnificent prose, itself full of religion and poetry both in thought and expression, he has not distinguished himself greatly in verse.