But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says: "This is enow
Unto itself—'twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me."
T. E. Brown, "Collected Poems."
THERE, in your garden, is a plant, busily engaged in collecting material for its future growth, although you can see nothing as yet above the ground. Still in the darkness of the earth it is sending out numerous root-threads amongst many strange material things, of which some serve it as nourishment. Buried in the soil without any visible link with the life of the air above, it lies, dormant and inactive until that life above reaches it with its beneficent influence in the form of rain and sunshine, quickening the soul of the plant to begin the weaving of its material garb on the already present ideal form.
And then, one day, the budding life breaks through the soil separating it from the air, and from now on a new life is entered upon, a double existence. The roots in the dark "prison of earth" continue to collect nourishment for the redoubled activity needed to build the ideal form. But the plant is now directly nourished and stimulated to growth by water and air and sunshine by means of its leaves as well. And thus, in proper time, the culmination comes in form of the flower, in its beauty really belonging to another world and a constant promise of a higher life. When it has given its message, blended its note of form, color, and fragrance in the great symphony of vegetable life, it passes away to rest; but in doing so it produces a store of seeds for future plant-lives similar to its own, thus binding together past and future and securing the continuity of its species.
How much food for thought there is in a simple picture that we constantly have before us! How thoughts and analogies built upon it help us—far better than the filling of our brains with narrow and petty theories without any spark of life, or the poisoning of our emotional life by our artificial aims and desires. Men are overburdened by false ideas and unsound emotions of their own making. Purification of heart, mind, and body, is surely needed, before the wholesome influences always reaching us from the Center of Life can make us grow rightly, intensely, though quietly and in silence.