Richter conveys a lesson good and true-"I picked up in the choir a faded rose leaf, that lay under the feet of the boys. Great God! what had I in my hand but a small leaf with a little dust upon it; and upon the small fugitive thing fancy built a whole paradise of joy, a whole summer dwelt upon this leaf. I thought of the beautiful day when the boy held this flower in his hand; and when, through the church window, he saw the heaven, and the clouds wandering over it; when every place in the cool vault was full of sunlight, and reminded him of the shadows on the grass from the overflying clouds. Great God! Thou scatterest satisfaction everywhere, and givest to every one joys to impart again. Not merely dost Thou invite us to rest and exciting pleasures, Thou givest to the smallest an exciting perfume." No psychologist will deny that plant life affords glimpses of the transcendental. It combines many principles, brings into concert many powers; and the delicacy of its parts, the complexity of its construction, the special and elaborate adaptation of function to function, denote high art in form and colour; and are, in some respects, an epitome of all being. We have in plants a mirror of the adaptation of the general properties and affinities of the inorganic world to the purposes of life. They oppose the outward rush of force from our system, arrest a part, fix it as potential energy; and, hindering the process of dissipation, accumulate subsistence and permanence that man may have time to acquire dominion over the visible universe, and be prepared for nobler part in that which is as yet unseen. In the several members, organs, functions of plants, we possess the first lodgment of the spirit of life wrought into Nature by the creative energy of the Eternal. Plants are endowed with life, not self-living. The general spirit of life is in them, but no soul; not even that brute-soul which is attributed to beasts. The psychological fact, for symbolical refraction, is—that in every human soul is first formed a tree of life, rooted in the heart, attaining summit or crown in the spirit. Thus, as by the tree of life, the kingdom of plants is represented in the soul. There are formed in it also, by The World a Study for Spirits. 213 strong spiritual operation, lifeless forms, more strongly or more weakly stamped as animal, which encamp around our heart; and these, even though they have no life of their own, are stirred at the heaving of the passions."1 The thought, even though it be visionary or poetical, is worth enlarging, and in another direction. Try to conceive of a spirit, in its initial period, secluded from contact with the material universe, acquainted only with mind. Such a spirit, awaking to consciousness of the properties of matter, would become, so to speak, new born; and take possession of another nature. He would find the various substances which are furnished by the soil, compounded, by modes transcendental, into other specific substances. The mechanical adjustment of parts, root, stem, leaves; in absorbing, respiring, expiring; in secreting, accreting, excreting; contain, in a mystery, the animal system-that harmony of a thousand elements. Taught by this material knowledge, that spirit would begin to reflect upon its own nature. Thus the genesis of matter, and the introduction of natural life, possibly enlarged the knowledge and power of the spirit-world. Consciousness of the natural world may impart to spirits an experience somewhat akin, yet diverse, to that which spirit imparts to the human soul. Passing things more recondite, there would be the fact of solid extension, the mechanical properties of hardness, softness, roughness, weight; the chemical properties in their varieties of pungencies, flavours, perfumes; and the vibrations of sound in melody and harmony; so refined, numerous, complicated, as to double all former powers of enjoyment. The boundary is not yet attained of sensitive existence more light would break in, and the universe stand revealed in all its beauties and glories. The great contriving Mind would be viewed, ever and ever starting from and to a higher point; not only in effecting delicate and complicated mechanism, but in so adapting the elements of the material and spiritual systems that eternity calls time to walk in Nature's wonderful avenue. More mysterious still, spirit enters flesh; then, wonder of wonders! in fulness of time, the Infinite and Eternal, who incomprehensibly manifests "System of Biblical Psychology :" Prof. F. Delitzsch. It views the individual in his relation to the Supreme, who is manifested in creation, revelation, providence, history. It sanctions, sanctifies, and renders possible, the true morality which ought to govern men in relation to their fellow-creatures. Religion and morality condemn whatever hinders or mars physical and spiritual completion of life; give the aspiration -the noblest we can entertain-for complete fulness of life; and yield philosophic explanation of the marvellous range of human sympathy, and of our irrepressible yearnings after the Divine. The divines and sages of the past were neither knaves, nor the dupes of knaves, but genuine philosophers; they not only made the best use of such implements of research as they possessed, but embodied in the spiritual organisation of creeds that which alone, of all the things in the world, was found capable of holding society together in troublous times, or of giving consolation to men in their affliction. The divines and sages of our own time are preserved from hasty and unwise use-even as they have no servile dread of scientific discovery. They have faith in a guiding and beneficent God, who inaugurates and maintains a better state of society here, as preparation for a more glorious future, by effecting not merely change of opinions, but improvement of heart. St. Augustine cried in amazement, "Wondrous depths of Thy words! whose surface, behold, is before us inviting to little ones; yet are they a wondrous depth." The amazement of Christians is not less in these days: the Book grows more venerable in antiquity, becomes more reverend in authority. The consideration of physical truths proves that Moses -living in what some account barbaric time, as to sciencewas certainly wise; and that the message which he claims to have received from God is undoubtedly true. Scientific difficulties, far from casting doubt on the faith in which we were nurtured, confirm, in their explanation, its Divinity. If the science of one age could fathom all depths, the Book, revealing those depths, might be wholly of man-a production of the land of Egypt and house of bondage; but knowledge opening new domains for wisdom to possess, finds new meaning. The 1 Conf. lib. xii. The Account of Creation Divine. 217 old words, the old thoughts, remain ineffaceable; but the child of the flesh is also a child of the Spirit-God's witness to the human heart. Moses dwelt in a land of sun-worshippers, and could not forget the sun; amongst men who laid stress on the letter of Nature's book, and rendered every symbol of the Divine a myth of some special divinity-a god of day and light, a god of night and darkness, a god of water and a god of fire, a god of good and a god of evil, god warred against god; nevertheless, Moses restored our knowledge of One true God. In laying the foundations of this higher knowledge, he advanced from Nature to Nature's God, from the seen to the unseen, entered that which the poet can only look upon from afar— "All experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades Impartial men will allow, that if Moses wrote such an account of creation as can stand the investigation of accurate modern science, he was the most wonderful of men. Christians claim more for the account: assert that the formula of Creation does not instruct men in science, yet contains even all which it revealeth not: is a formula, with mystery of deep within deep, for the profound; but to the simple-hearted as a clear lake wherein the face answering to their face is the Human Face Divine. A formula, wherein the problem to be solved is the equation of all things and nothing, the finite and Infinite, time and Eternity, must be a Divine product. No other intelligence, not even that of the highest archangel, knew or saw the primal generation; and no creature can understand or describe that genesis by which worldsrelatively eternal and infinite, both as to the past and the future-begin, continue, end—the end issuing in the birth of new worlds evermore. This formula, being for men, is to be regarded in human fashion. It reveals a process in which God, everywhere and in all things, everlastingly calls forth successive existences to live, move, have being in Him. To high intelligence, the process stands out in complete result, somewhat as it is in Himself in space and time by all phenomena, dwells in that holy human form, Jesus. Language fails in utterance of thought. Who can put into words the deep truths which underlie our consciousness of Nature, and of those vast substantial spiritual realities on which are based the glorious things of Revelation? The commonest facts which lie ready to our hand, in their essence, have relations with infinity; nor can we understand how moments of time are linked by consciousness into the chain of our life; but still, though with darkling rather than glimmering knowledge as to possible instruction of angels by the creation of our own world, the symbols used may be fairly taken as indications that our own knowledge and faculties of enjoyment will enlarge in the future according to the measure of Divine things attained in this life; and that these seeds of wisdom will not only grow into flowers of thought, but yield glorious fruit in some paradise of God. |