The microscope has revealed to us the life and habits of myriads of
creatures of whose existence we had previously no knowledge. We had
not even a suspicion that what to our unaided vision appeared inert
elements held a rampant, multitudinous life, nowhere dead, but always
surging and changing, ever replacing death and decay with a new life
all its own. Nature's luxuriance everywhere fills us with wonder and
delight. The fragrant ferny depths of the forest, and the lush growth
of the rank marsh-land, the immeasurable sands of the ocean-edge hiding
in their mysterious sameness innumerable and beautiful shells and
corals, and the mountain top heaped up with boulders, or crumbling by
nature's processes into pebbly imponderance.
Life, swarming everywhere. Tiny leaflets giving succor and shelter to
tinier animal life--its special fairy. Huge beasts couchant in
majestic trees, guarding against invasions, with a fierce, jealous rage
inherited from the gnomes and satyrs.
Deep sea depths untouched by lightnings, where the kraken makes his
home; jolly dolphins disporting in the sunlight, responding to the cry
of the hovering wild duck and gull. Human beings overcrowding in the
oldest settled portions of the globe, until nature's resources for
their sustenance are wellnigh exhausted.
All these, and many more, might justly be enumerated to illustrate the
bountiful and inexhaustible resources of the great creative,
reconstructive Power in the universe of matter.
Life, everywhere life, forcing out death and decay. Ever changing its
form of expression. Reforming itself upon steadily advancing models.
All nature swinging in circles so wide and vast as to require centuries
for their completion.
One of the most fascinating doctrines of the Swedish Seer is contained
in the "law of correspondences." By it many things, seemingly
irregular, "fall into line," and become parts of a great process of
development. Following this method, the earnest, searching mind,
looking through nature up to "Nature's God," seeks to go beyond the
confines of the mere animal, material existence, and come into sympathy
with and get a knowledge of the world unseen, but often felt and
recognized, spiritual life, filling all the spaces which seem to the
earth-dimmed senses dull and void. There is no death, no vacancy in
this realm of nature, any more than in that other, more tangible one,
the outgrowth and the necessity of this great storm-tossed planet. But
all the expressions of life in this sphere are different from those to
which our material senses are accustomed, and require the action of
another, a finer, more spiritual set of faculties in order to
comprehend them even partially which, at the best, is all we can hope
to do while we remain denizens of and subject to the laws which control
this world of material substance.
"Jacob's dream" was not a dream only. It was a reality. From supernal
heights "Ladders" are ever being dropped down to our earth, into our
midst, upon which forms immortal and real "ascend and descend"
according to our need and our demand upon them for love and help.
We are continually overshadowed by this supermundane existence. Its
influences are both positive and negative, good and evil. It has
powers adapted to every issue of human experience; because it is the
outgrowth, the fruitage of human life. Its roots are planted in this
earth. Its topmost branches wave in the sunlight which flows from the
"Throne of God." It is God. Not a separate and distinct being; but an
intelligent principle of love abounding in everything; expressing
itself through everything. Knowing no "high" or "low." Seeing no
difference between the "just and the unjust"; showering down upon all
alike, benisons of wisdom, and peace and good will.
Gathering all together in one embrace; the whole race of man, one
undivided family. Its divine "Trinity" is Evolution, Progress,
Liberty. Many minds reject this assumption of facts, because of the
necessity which a recognition of them would involve for a readjustment
of mental processes, and religious beliefs affecting their daily
experience.