56 Walks in New England 



sheaths and brings what we call death to the tree 

 and the shrub, indicates but a conversion of life 

 force into new modes of manifestation. Life ends 

 not, but forever begins. And as it has been, so 

 it shall be. 



The individual life, as it is a growth, may have 

 its pause or its conclusion ; let the spirit see to it 

 that, set free from whatever circumstances forbid 

 or contract it, it shall have continuance in itself 

 by virtue of that which in the sight of Jesus made 

 man of a farther advance than the flowers of the 

 field and the birds of the air, and yet of the same 

 nature and under the same care. Not a sparrow 

 falleth to the ground without your Father. It 

 was not necessary to make a hypothetical emen 

 dation here ; this does not mean that God had a 

 purpose in the sparrow s fall, or that he decreed 

 it, but that he must perforce be present in all the 

 incident and result of life, the Father is not 

 outside, but within the phenomena we see ; he is 

 all and in all. Jesus was a pantheist, as all high 

 poetic natures have been, for he knew no place 

 where God was not. But this is hidden to some 

 by ecclesiasticism, to some by dogma, and the 

 most religious may be deficient in this spiritual 

 sense. For as Cowley wrote : 



Only the spirit can the spirit own. 



