And faint the lily on its stem. And faint the perfect violet,
Compared with them.
1 Captain Basil Hall.
58 THINGS PREPARED FOR LOVE
I heard the songs of Paradise:
Each bird sat singing in his place;
A tender song so full of grace It soared like incense to the skies. Each bird sat singing to his mate
Soft cooing notes among the trees: The nightingale herself were cold
To such as these.
I saw the fourfold Eiver now,
And deep it was, with golden sand;
It flowed between a mossy land With murmured music grave and low. It hath refreshment for all thirst,
For fainting spirits strength and rest; Earth holds not such a draught as this
From east to west.
The Tree of Life stood budding there,
Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;
Eternal sap sustains its roots, Its shadowing branches fill the air. Its leaves are healing for the world,
Its fruit the hungry world can feed, Sweeter than honey to the taste
And balm indeed.
I saw the Gate called Beautiful;
And looked, but scarce could look within;
I saw the golden streets begin, And outskirts of the glassy pool. Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,
Oh green palm branches many-leaved — Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived.
I hope to see these things again,
But not as once in dreams by night;
To see them with my very sight, And touch and handle and attain : To have all heaven beneath my feet
For narrow way that once they trod; To have my part with all the saints,
And with my God.1
1 Cliristiiia G. Kossetti, Parodist.
i CORINTHIANS n. 9 59
2. What are the things which God has revealed ?
" Things " is a short way of saying " thinkings." Everything was first a thought. This world before it became a thing was a thought in the Creator's mind. Every cathedral that has ever been built was a thought in the mind of the architect before it became a thing in the hands of the builder. Every book of poems was first of all a thought in the poet's mind. The things here spoken of are God's thinkings, God's thoughts; but God's thoughts are realities ; they are no mere myths, they are things. What are these "deep things of God" to which the Apostle refers? There can be no doubt that St. Paul was thinking of the glorious total of redeeming mercy and the wonders of redeeming grace.
(1) The knowledge of Christ as God was to St. Paul one of the most wonderful revelations of the Spirit. He had known Christ after the flesh ; he was aware that He had said and done certain things, and had been crucified; and the crucifixion he had regarded as a triumphant refutation of His claims, and as covering Him with well-merited contempt. But as soon as he was changed, the veil was taken from his eyes; and what eye, and ear, and intellect had sought in vain, God revealed by His Spirit.
If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men
Mere man, the first and best but nothing more, —
Account Him, for reward of what He was,
Now and forever, wretchedest of all.
For see; Himself conceived of life as love,
Conceived of love as what must enter in,
Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved :
Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for Him.
Well, He is gone, thou say est, to fit reward.
But by this time are many souls set free,
And very many still retained alive;
Nay, should His coming be delayed awhile,
Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute),
See if, for every finger of thy hands,
There be not found, that day the world shall end,
Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word
That He will grow incorporate with all,
With me as Pamphylax, with him as John,
Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?
6o THINGS PREPARED FOR LOVE
Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do. Call Christ, then, the illimitable God, Or lost!1
(2) The revelation of God as Love comes also by the Spirit. It is in vain that you reiterate that " God is love," if my terrified conscience and cruel temper shut out the very notion of love, and empty the word of all true meaning. The spirit of love must dawn upon our consciousness; no mere description will enable us to understand it ; but as soon as its light arises within, a revelation is made, and the spiritual mind apprehends what was hidden from intellect and sense.
O Thou — as represented here to me
In such conception as my soul allows, —
Under Thy measureless, my atom width! —
Man's mind, what is it but a convex glass
Wherein are gathered all the scattered points
Picked out of the immensity of sky,
To re-unite there, be our heaven for earth,
Our known unknown, our God revealed to man ?
Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole;
Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense, —
There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus !)
In the absolute immensity, the whole
Appreciable solely by Thyself, —
Here, by the little mind of man, reduced
To littleness that suits his faculty,
In the degree appreciable too;