But what was then hidden from the pagan world could hardly be so to the first father of our race, he who out of the vast stores of his infused science named all created beings. When Adam saw the corn growing bright in thick array, and the vine bending down with purple fruit, surely he understood, as in
a prophecy, the great symbol of the bread of life and of the Holy Eucharist. The body and blood of the Incarnate God, albeit unbroken and unshed, must have been present to his ardent expectation as he beheld their antitype in the garden of Paradise. The rose with her mystic bosom deep enfolded must ever have awakened some passing thought of the Rosa mystica. And when to sad Eve, after her exile beyond the gates guarded by the flaming sword of the cherubim, the rose appeared bearing thorns among her five or seven leaved foliage, she guessed at the sacred crown and the divine wounds of the God-man, and at the sevenfold desolation of the mother who bore him. And what to us are the bright autumn hedgerow leaves dabbed with blood, not red now but tawny? Are they not tokens that he has trod that way and left the traces of his past glorious passion—past, because that blood was shed once for all, but still and for ever remaining; while the scarlet poppy takes up the theme, and in every corn-field, on barren tracks, and meeting the way-worn traveller by the road’s dusty side, reminds him that the sacrifice is renewed hour by hour the wide world over, fresh and life-giving as ever? Can the rich woodlands fail to bring before us the thought of him who gathered from the forests of his own creation the wood for his own cross? Can we sit beneath the dappled sunshine of the flickering boughs without remembering how it dared to lay its quick vibrating touch upon his sacred head, as he walked amid the olive groves of Gethsemane, but withdrew itself, and gave place to the cold moon before the scene of his great agony?
Surely these shadows are full of uncreated light; and from time to time the church retrims her lamps of dogmatic theology, and each time the light streams further down into the still, dim, uncertain regions of natural science, another precious secret is revealed, another ancient doubt dispelled; and matter and natural laws prove themselves each more and more to be the depositories of divine truth and the faithful creatures of the omnipresent Creator.
While acknowledging the force of law, we have denied that law can have an independent existence apart from a self-existing, self-conscious lawgiver, of whom it is the exponent. We have asserted the same as regards force, which is but another name for law, or, rather, which is law in posse. And we have stated that as science proves the absence of all direct contact in the material world, the world of atoms, so the only real contact is that of spirit on matter, of the divine Creator on his own creation. For he is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. All forces, all active powers, emanate from God. They are the evidences to us of his existence. They could as little exist without him as a shadow can exist without light. They are one in their nature, though they are diverse in their effects, because they are God’s constant touch on his own creation. He exists formally in all space and beyond all space. And everywhere he is the same: the immutable and absolute Ens. In his touch on his creation he gives rise to the active forces which virtually declare his being, and which are extended throughout space, but under a million varied degrees of being and a million varied forms. They
are virtually everywhere equally. But their manifestation in mind and degree is as diverse as all that exists in the vast cosmos, inside and outside of which God is, infinite and entire.
We have not enlarged upon this theme as we might have done. We have only pointed out to our readers how God’s touch on his creation is the only absolute contact that exists, and that science goes to prove the absence of all other, that is, of all material contact. We have abstained from trying to demonstrate how this truth sweeps away a hundred doubts respecting God’s ways towards man, and a thousand difficulties that might prove stumbling-blocks to our faith. We have desired no more than to put the thought, nay, we might say the fact, before them, and leave them to work out all its corollaries in love and devotion. We are not writing for sceptics but for those who believe, and would fain believe yet more surely, giving a reason for the faith that is in them, and dwelling in prayer on thoughts which reveal more of God’s character to the soul. We are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. That is, in our measure and degree, we are to aim at a faint reflection of the harmony, the proportion, the justice of God. To do this, and to aim at doing it, we need to form in our own minds an accurate though but a limited view of the character of God. And to effect this, we must as it were look at his character all round—for which purpose the past, the present, and the future are all-important to us; and we have to view him as he reveals himself to us in his creation, in his government, and in his promises. We have ventured to maintain that the whole of his
creation is with a view to his Incarnation; that the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is enhanced by his glorious passion and most precious death working our redemption; that it is glorified by his resurrection and ascension; and only completed in his sacramental presence; that as this sacramental presence is the one great fact virtually enclosing in itself all the others, as it is the coping-stone of the great mystery of the Incarnation, its lowest depth and greatest height, so is it the link that rivets the creation to the God-man, and the keystone to all the science of matter and dynamic force. For it is the divine epitome of all the laws that govern both, the reason of their being, and the last exponent of their rootedness in God. It completes the circle within whose bounds lies the entire cosmos as a globe environed by the serpent. It is the golden ring with which the divine Spouse has wedded himself to his church and to all the world, if they but know it. Words fail us. We cannot say enough; for these are thoughts too deep for words, and which seem to be rather darkened than expressed by language. And, like all that is greatest, they come to us from that which seems most simple and most hidden of all—a silken-curtained Tabernacle; and behind the little closed door lies all; every secret has its solution within the round white limits of the Host, for that Host is the great ultimatum of the creation, and the absolute consummation of God’s giving himself to man, while the latter is in the condition of viator.
We have entreated our readers not to be deluded by the dimness of the present times, but by prayer and solitary thought to strain their spiritual vision to behold the brightness
of the future which is coming upon us like the rays of the sun behind a mist; the reign of the Holy Ghost—the enlargement of the church’s border, and the spreading of the cords of her tent; the devotion to the Mother of God taking root in an honorable people; and thus, through the mediation of her who is the first among all created beings, bringing the whole outer world nearer to the spiritual world. This, and the future mission, may be a very distant one, of her messengers the angels, are all certain because they are written, and even now the signs of the times indicate their advent. In whatever form they may come, whatever may be the details filling up the wonderful picture of the future, whatever, in short, may be the literal working-out of the wonderful promises of the Gospel, one thing at least is certain: they mean peace to men of good-will. We may be quite unable to define or explain them; we are waiting for the hour when the church shall teach us more. But we cannot exaggerate their importance, nor can we deny that our blessed Lord has left a rebuke on those who make no attempt to discern the signs of the times. There are souls among his special servants who are the men of the future. They are those who are called to stand on the watch-towers of prayer, and to hear the cry, “Watchman, what of the night?”
The time of figs was not yet. Nevertheless, he in his eternal justice cursed the fig-tree that yielded him no fruit, when he deigned to look up among the broad, scented leaves of its knotted branches. There are souls who are called to bear fruit out of season as well as in season, and woe to them if they fail in their higher and exceptional