The natural evidences she points out are visible to all and within the comprehension of the feeblest intelligence, but he whose vision is obscured by book knowledge “is like unto the monk who prays within his cell, unheedful of the timid sunbeam who would light the page his wisdom so befogs.” “Ah!” she exclaims, “the labor set thee to unlearn thine inborn fancies!” meaning, apparently, the suppression of the intuitions of immortality; and in the same line of thought she cries: “Am I then drunkened on the chaff of knowledge supped by mine elderborn? Nay, my forefolk drank not truth, but sent through my veins acoursing, chaff, chaff, naught by chaff.” Plainly, then, Patience has no great respect for learning, and it is the book of Nature rather than the book of words that she would have us read.
I made a song from the dead notes of His birds,
And wove a wreath of withered lily buds,
And gathered daisies that the sun had scorched,
And plucked a rose the riotous wind had torn,
And stolen clover flowers, down-trodden by the kine,
And fashioned into ropes and tied with yellow reed,
An offering unto Him: and lo, the dust
Of crumbling blossoms fell to bloom again,
And smiled like sickened children,