We want something else which can hardly be put
into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive
it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. At present we are on
the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness
and purity of morning, but it does not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle
with the splendours we see.
But all the leaves of the New Testament are
rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing,
we shall get in. When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary
obedience as an inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then we will
put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the
first sketch.
For you must not think that I am putting forward any
heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive
her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still
be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture
invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into
that splendour which she fitfully reflects.
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