Here, even as we are Here
mysteriously, with God!--Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows
have perished, or are perishable; that the real Being of whatever was,
and whatever is, and whatever will be, _is_ even now and forever.
This, should it unhappily seem new, thou mayest ponder at thy leisure;
for the next twenty years, or the next twenty centuries: believe it
thou must; understand it thou canst not.

'That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once for all, we are
sent into this Earth to live, should condition and determine our whole
Practical reasonings, conceptions, and imagines or imaginings,--seems
altogether fit, just, and unavoidable. But that they should,
furthermore, usurp such sway over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind
us to the wonder everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit
Space and Time to their due rank as Forms of Thought; nay even, if
thou wilt, to their quite undue rank of Realities: and consider, then,
with thyself how their thin disguises hide from us the brightest
God-effulgences! Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth
my hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my
hand and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and
thither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies
in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to
see that the true inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this,
that I can stretch forth my hand at all; that I have free Force to
clutch aught therewith? Innumerable other of this sort are the
deceptions, and wonder-hiding stupefactions, which Space practises on
us.

'Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti-magician, and
universal wonder-hider, is this same lying Time. Had we but the
Time-annihilating Hat, to put on for once only, we should see
ourselves in a World of Miracles, wherein all fabled or authentic
Thaumaturgy, and feats of Magic, were outdone. But unhappily we have
not such a Hat; and man, poor fool that he is, can seldom and scantily
help himself without one.

'Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Amphion, built
the walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his Lyre? Yet tell me, Who
built these walls of Weissnichtwo; summoning-out all the sandstone
rocks, to dance along from the _Steinbruch_ (now a huge Troglodyte
Chasm, with frightful green-mantled pools); and shape themselves into
Doric and Ionic pillars, squared ashlar houses