66 



VERY RKV. W. R. INGE^ M.A., D.D., ON 



whether lue bring to nature the beauty which we find there. In a 

 sense we do ; but only in the sense in which we are one with the 

 spiritual principle which creates those glories and endues the 

 visible forms with the hues of the Divine goodness, wisdom, and 

 beauty. The power of seeing the Divine in nature varies almost 

 infinitely in different people. The true genius of nature — 

 mysticism — is a rare product — much rarer than might be inferred 

 from those who talk and write of such experiences at second 

 hand. Those who have it not may console themselves with the 

 reflexion that this gift is rarely found associated with a very 

 keen and delicate human sympathy. One is a compensation for 

 the other. Wordsworth affords a case in point. One quotation 

 will be enough to illustrate his wonderful power of reading 

 inanimate nature. 



" He looked : 

 Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth 

 And ocean's liquid mass in gladness lay 

 Beneath him. Far and wide the clouds were touched 

 And in their silent faces could be read 

 Unutterable love. Sound needed none, 

 Nor any voice of joy : his spirit drank 

 The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form, 

 All melted into him ; they swallowed up 

 His animal being : in them did he live 

 And by them did he live ; they were his life." 



This degree of mystical intuition is a rare gift ; but many 

 who could not describe their feelings, which are indeed partly 

 subconscious, derive great benefit from contact with nature. 

 We shall hardly aspire, with Blake, 



" To see the world in a grain of sand 

 And a heaven in a wild flower. 

 Hold infinity in the palm of your hand 

 And eternity in an hour." 



But many will echo the words of Kepler, " My wish is that I 

 may see the God Whom I find everywhere in the external 

 world, in like manner within and inside me." The order, beauty, 

 and " Concordia discors " of nature, its vastness and minuteness, 

 above all, perhaps, its crushing refutation of the puny indi- 

 vidualist, who wants to live for himself and make his surround- 

 ings conform to him. 



" The lesson writ in red since time began, 

 A hunter hunting down the beast in man ; 

 That till the chasing out of its last vice, 

 The flesh was fashioned but for sacrifice." 



