those new lands in which all things are obliterated and forgotten—knowing that its own death was impending.
But the case is idly put. If such extinguishing Death were from the first seen as it is when it comes, Love would either not exist; or else would be a mere fellowship of coarse appetites, like those of the Satyr, who crushes the grape for drunken revelry, and basks and battens in the woods.
XXXVI.
Although, even in manhood, the great truths of Religion only
“darkly join,
Deep-seated in our mystic frame”—
since at best we only see as through a glass darkly: we nevertheless bless His name, who “made them current coin,” so as to be generally intelligible. This was done by the teaching of Parables.
For Divine Wisdom, having to deal with mortal powers, conveyed sacred truth through “lowly doors,” by embodying it in earthly similitudes; because “closest words” will not explain Divine things, owing to the imperfection of human language; “and so the Word had breath,” “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. iii., 16, and 1 John, 14), and by good works wrought the best of all creeds, which the labourer in the field, the mason, the grave-digger,
“And those wild eyes that watch the wave
In roarings round the coral reef,”
even the savage of the Pacific Islands, can see and understand, being conveyed to him through both the miracles and parables of the Gospel.