[304] which influences the congregations. Then if they are very much influenced and impressed, and ask for a copy of the sermon, don't believe that this is the same thing, because the connotative power, not only of the words but also of the rhythm of the language, of the voice, of all these elements which belong to the language, come into it. And very often in the written or printed sermon, the symbolic power which was present when it was given, has vanished! This is only an

example to show you the dialectical character of language, that it always unites meaning and power--- as [does] all spiritual life, by the way. Then I come to a political---or if you want, the historical-political---symbols, mostly persons and outstanding events. They are subject-matter in themselves. They are empirical. And they could be photographed, psychographed, phonographed in every moment of their existence. But they wouldn't change the situation if they have become symbols. A figure like Lincoln^a in this country is an empirical figure, with whom all this could have been done. But he is much more than this. He is representative for one of the fundamental meanings of the existence of this country, and, I personally would feel, for the BEST meaning of this country. Now this is symbolic and goes far beyond what can be said empirically about it. Of course the empirical material is the presupposition---without his

actually having lived and done this, in history, he never could have become a political symbol; but insofar as he IS a symbol, he transcends his empirical reality by far. And so it is also with special events. The battle between the Huns and the Franks, in the