Splendour of the New Jerusalem 249 



most vertically, the view of the forest against the 

 sun was ineffably beautiful. Those were true 

 jewels that hung on every grass blade and every 

 twig, and that sparkled from the boughs. The 

 dew-drop and the soap-bubble get their iridescence 

 by the same process, and the same law that makes 

 the diamond produces the ice-prism crystalliza 

 tion is identical in both. The one, we say, is 

 transient, the beauty of a moment ; the other, we 

 say, is permanent, enduring for ages. But what 

 are ages more than moments in the order of the 

 universe ? 



Yesterday any one might have the wealth of 

 the world for the seeing. Such flashing, flaming 

 trees ! flaming in the very guise of gems, here 

 a ruddy jasper, there a delicate aquamarina ; a 

 turquoise here, and here a beryl ; topazes yellow 

 and orange, and fire opals that made the eye ache 

 to behold them ; rubies, too, and bright chryso 

 lites, amethysts and jacinths ; the infinite faceted 

 diamonds and the deep skyey lapis-lazuli. The 

 very names of precious stones are poetic in their 

 music, and all of them were seen on the great 

 trees, shining from their outmost boughs against 

 the wonderful skies like glories of the New Je 

 rusalem as the Revelator saw it coming down from 

 heaven to earth. And if one looked toward the 

 sun lo ! as it were transparent glass the whole 



