FIELD AND STUDY 



The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse. 

 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 

 Of all my moral being." 



That creative eye and ear in the presence of 

 Nature is what mainly distinguishes the modern 

 attitude from the ancient. Sympathy is always crea- 

 tive. "Thanks to the human heart by which we 

 live." 



§ 



Emerson refers to a Swedenborgian neighbor of 



his who was a philosopher up to a certain point, and 

 then accepted the village church as a part of the sky; 

 he says the day is not far distant when men will 

 cease thus to patch the ecliptic of the universe with 

 a small bit of tin. Is not this the mistake all the 

 good church people make? Nature is so much bigger 

 than their creed, and so much more real, that it is 

 like confounding a shingle roof with the firmament. 

 The gulf between the sky and the church is no 

 greater than the guK between the orthodox religion 

 and our natural knowledge. 



That Christ came out of the earth, that the 

 Hebrew prophets, that Paul, that all the saints and 

 poets and philosophers of the world came out of the 

 earth; that our planet, and the system of which it 

 forms a part, should hold the elements of such men; 

 that they should be struck from it as the spark is 

 evoked from the flint — such facts as these should 



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