An
Answering Mercy
In every earnest life
there are weary flats to tread, with the heavens out of sight, — no sun, no
moon, and not a tint of light upon the path below; when the only guidance is
the faith of brighter hours, and the secret Hand we are too numb and dark to
feel. But to the meek and faithful it is not always so. Now and then something
touches the dull dream of sense and custom, and the desolation vanishes away:
the spirit leaves its witness with us: the divine realities come up from the
past and straightway enter the present: the ear into which we poured our prayer
is not deaf; the infinite eye to which we turned is not blind, but looks in
with answering mercy on us.
— James Martineau (born April 21, 1805)
An
Immortal Growth
The germs of an immortal
growth are within us now, and will spring up, not by the bruising and crushing
of our nature, but by its glorious opening out. We are here to try and train
our faculties for great achievements and harmonious residence within the will
of God. Nor is the theatre unworthy of our best endeavours. Only let us not, in
action or in suffering, sink down upon the present moment, as if that were all.
Amid the strife and sorrow that await us, let us remember that the ills of life
are not here on their own account, but are the divine challenge and god-like
wrestling in the night with our too reluctant wills; and since, thus regarded,
they are truly evil no more, let us embrace the conflict manfully, and fear no
defeat to any faithful will.
— James Martineau (born April 21, 1805)
Imagination
How infinitely superior to our physical senses are those of the mind!
The spiritual eye sees not only rivers of water but of air. It sees the
crystals of the rock in rapid sympathetic motion, giving enthusiastic obedience
to the sun's rays, then sinking back to rest in the night. The whole world is
in motion to the center. So also sounds. We hear only woodpeckers and squirrels
and the rush of turbulent streams. But imagination gives us the sweet music of
tiniest insect wings, enables us to hear, all round the world, the vibration of
every needle, the waving of every bole and branch, the sound of stars in
circulation like particles in the blood. The Sierra canyons are full of
avalanche debris — we hear them boom again, for we read past sounds from
present conditions. Again we hear the earthquake rock-falls. Imagination is
usually regarded as a synonym for the unreal. Yet is true imagination healthful
and real, no more likely to mislead than the coarser senses. Indeed, the power
of imagination makes us infinite.
— John Muir (born April 21, 1838)
Home
Going
The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as heimgang — home-going.
So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the
rock-ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the
rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads
of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into
death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit — waited on, watched over, noticed
only by their Maker, each arriving at its own heaven-dealt destiny. All the
merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air,
called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home through death,
wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first
tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms of centuries, flowers turning
faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of
life’s feast — all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet
all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share heaven’s blessings
with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity
and return into eternity. ‘Our little lives are rounded with a sleep.’
— John Muir (born April 21, 1838)
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| James Martineau (1805-1900) |
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