THE GRIST OF THE GODS 



planet. But if we felt or heard or saw or were con- 

 scious of all that was going on in the universe, what 

 a state of agitation we should be in ! Our scale of 

 apprehension is wisely limited, mainly to things 

 that concern our well-being. 



But let not care and humdrum deaden us to the 

 wonders and the mysteries amid which we live, 

 nor to the splendors and the glories. We need not 

 translate ourselves in imagination to some other 

 sphere or state of being to find the marvelous, the 

 divine, the transcendent ; we need not postpone our 

 day of wonder and appreciation to some future 

 time and condition. The true inwardness of this 

 gross visible world, hanging like an apple on the 

 bough of the great cosmic tree, and swelling with 

 all the juices and potencies of life, transcends any- 

 thing we have dreamed of super-terrestrial abodes. 

 It is because of these things, because of the vitality, 

 spirituality, oneness, and immanence of the universe 

 as revealed by science, its condition of transcending 

 time and space, without youth and without age, 

 neither beginning nor ending, neither material nor 

 spiritual, but forever passing from one into the 

 other, that I was early and deeply impressed by 

 Walt Whitman's lines : — 



"There was never any more inception than there is now. 

 Not any more youth or age than there is now; 

 And will never be any more perfection than there is now. 

 Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.'' 



211 



