^ Place the tourist who hurries across the Atlantic and through the towns of Europe in order to see or " to do " the Continent — place him with his erratic mind untrained before the greatest masterpieces of art ; plant him in the chapel at Florence ; let him stand face to face with Michael Angelo's creations of Night and Morning. His first impression will be, " These are greatly
* W. Boyd Carpenter.
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overpraised ; why, the very anatomy is faulty ; 1 cannot see why people should praise these things." But now for a moment imagine that there drops upon that man's soul as he stands there some little portion of Michael Angelo's nature. What a transformation takes place within his soul in his power of perception at that moment ! Then he sees something new ; then these " greatly overpraised " figures begin to have a message for him ; they seem to speak into his life now because Michael Angelo is in his soul, and he can read what Michael Angelo meant.^
^ I am truly glad you like Humboldt's letters so much. How necessary for appreciation of a book, scene, picture, society, is a certain previous adaptation of the frame of mind ! Do you remember how little you cared for that book the first time of reading it in a smaller form ? Experience, added light, and the aspect given by events which no purpose or control could have arranged, have given it now fresh meaning and made it a new book.2
^ This was one of the first lessons that young Henry Drummond learned from John Ruskin. Before the master came to open his eyes, a ploughed field to Henry Drummond was just a ploughed field — a sight unlovely, unattractive. To Ruskin, however, it was a wonderful study in colour ; and so it became to Drummond. At the touch of the master's hand the commonplace field was trans- formed before his eyes. And to his ever-deepening vision it became more and more a thing of beauty and a source of
(3) It is a step upwards in our co-operation with God. — This is the third aspect of life. Our life is a life of association and society with others, and so long as men were in the state in which they were surrounded by the marvellous and miraculous, the manna fell round about their habitation, and the difference between their condition after they entered into the Promised Land and their condition before, was this, that that manna fell without their effort, it fell just where they could gather it without any exertion, but the corn needed to be sown, and the corn needed to be gathered in the spot where it grew, and therefore the children of Israel were now in the position of being made co-operators in the work of God. Hitherto they had been babes fed just according to the discretion
^ W. Boyd Carpenter.
^ F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 449.
* J. B. Maclean, The Secret of the Stream, 42.
128 EXCELLENCE OF THINGS ORDINARY
of the parent, now they are the participators in the work, they have passed the stage in which everything is being done for them into the stage in which they are to be morally responsible and co- operative, in which they are to co-operate with God in His great order and His great work.
The sinner's own fault ? So it was. If every own fault found us out, Dogged us and hedged us round about,
What comfort should we take because Not half our due we thus wrung out?
Clearly his own fault. Yet I think My fault in part, who did not pray But lagged and would not lead the way.
I, haply, proved his missing link.
God help us both to mend and pray.^
Co-operation with God is the great step which we make when we reach the conception of Christianity. Christ went up on high but to bestow gifts on men, and that we might be fellow-workers together with God. The stage which we are regretting is the stage of advance ; it is the stage where we are brought alongside the great Worker of all good, who works ceaselessly ; alongside the Spirit, which works in the hearts of men. And therefore we attain a nobler position. Although we say we no longer live when miracles are wrought, and the Son of God has entered into the heavens, and is an invisible Divine Being to us, the answer comes back, " Yes, but He has left you a heritage of co-operation with Him, He has brought you into the position in which the full corn of the land is to be your food, and not only your food, but is to be gathered by you that it may be the food of other men." That is a far nobler position.
God is not dumb, that He should speak no more; If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor; There towers the mountain of the voice no less. Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, Intent on manna still and mortal ends. Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore. 1 C. G. Rosaetti.
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Slowly the Bible of the race is writ.