THE LIFE OF MAN. 211 



itself into the clear apprehension of a spiritual order, 

 and rises into an infinite and confiding joy. Rooted 

 in a new and richer soil, the tree of our delight 

 spreads out its branches in a sunnier air. It 

 is no longer our mere impression, still less our 

 mere fancy, to which Nature speaks of holiness, 

 of peap, of joy, of sacrifice, of that which we 

 most long to find in it; it speaks of these things 

 to our whole being. Every faculty finds rest and 

 satisfaction in it. It is no more one thing to our 

 heart and another to our thought ; it is wholly one ; 

 the best and highest appearing to us, as to us in our 

 lowliness it can appear ; claiming to be known and 

 understood, as by the best and highest in us, alone, 

 it can be understood. 



The reducing all events in nature to the mere 

 play of forces, brings, in the end, this lesson ; our 

 souls, which it threatened to starve, it fills with a 

 higher life. 



But we naturally ask further If the physical be 

 the appearance of the spiritual world, how can we 

 connect the one with the other in our thoughts ? 

 How shall we look through the apparent to the 



142 



