In The Valley Of Havilah (1890) (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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Excerpt from In the Valley of Havilah

If the stranger becomes curious and visits the place, he finds his picture by no means an exaggeration of the truth. One must see that land to know how wonderful, how beautiful, it is. In the presence of reality, description becomes mere poetic nonsense, words degen erate into syntactical incoherencies. The dweller in the land of Havilah lives with a growing sense of his own littleness in this realm of epic possibilities, feeling that it should be peopled by genii and dragons he goes away enlarged by the consciousness that he has been the witness Of unheard-of changes, the companion'and inti mate Of stupendous physical forces, the friend of Nature's secret, introspective moments.

We are parts of the Infinite whole, pieces chipped off from the Infinite mind. Why should it be accounted a difficult thing to feel our relations to the Primal Love as near and pleasant, even though the need of human fel lowship binds a share of our'affections to the earth P Here in the mountains there need be no doubt of at least the broadest meanings of nature and the soul above nature. The great harp of creation is strung with chords of continually increasing fineness, from the rocks and trees up to men and the angels. Woods, winds, and waters, in all their varied forms of beauty, are God's concrete thoughts; man's spiritual excellences are His abstract thoughts. To understand nature is to draw near to the Great White Throne and worship in humble adoration; but to understand the human soul is to take part in the workings of the Divine Intellect and feel the solemnity of its mightiest aspirations.