aid--the Mighty Lover; and we may see in the whole scheme of
Creation, as we know it here, from jelly-fish to man, a plan by
which the soul may bring her wanderings to a term in time
conditions instead of timeless sons. When all this earth is evolved
for her great need, at last by the mercy of God she is interned in the
body of finite man, and must clothe herself in the heart and mind of
the human and take upon herself the nature of this creature man,
made and fashioned to be a suitable instrument and habitation for
her. To counterbalance the grossness and ineptitude of the creature's
material body with its appetites, man is imbued with the knowledge
of right, and with a secret longing for a _happiness which is not that
of the beast._
The soul must raise the brute in him, with all its appetites, to
purity,--a mighty task, accomplished with much pain, yet in infinitely
shorter duration of pain than if left in disembodied spirit-life; and,
indeed, we may come to look upon pain in this world as one of our
best privileges because of its powers of purification within a time-limit,
and to know that by the mercy of the God of Love we may take our hell
of cleansing in this world rather than in those worlds of disembodied
spirits where progress is of infinite slowness--revolving and revolving
upon itself, as a sand-spiral in a blast-furnace, without hope of death.
Oh, how convey any warning of this terrible knowledge, which is
not communicable by words! He said, "Though one return from the
dead, ye would not believe." But, O soul! repent and return while
still in the body! Lay hold on the Christ!
In the life of this world, then, does our God of love and mercy give
us rapid means (by conquest of the animal grossness and corruptible
body, raising man to the ideal man, according to God's intention) to
reunite ourselves with Him. And the soul of all animal creation is
also thereby gradually raised with us into a universal adoration of
the One Almighty God.
This is no fallen but a rising world, in which all Creation is slowly
and gloriously rising step by step.
So may our soul repay her debt to God for her past infidelities.
"Thy Maker is thine husband," says the voice of the prophet.
And the creature, with its suffering heart and mind and body, has
also its incomparable reward of bliss: for because of its love and
obedience it is raised into the spiritual body, AND TOGETHER
WITH THE SOUL BECOMES THE CHILD OF THE RESURRECTION.
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[Transcriber's Notes: The name of the author, Lilian Staveley, is not
mentioned on the title page of this text, but I have added it here. I
have made one spelling change: "enough to blow-to" to "enough to
blow to".]