thin
the caverns of the sea remains united with the orb whence it sprang, so
the soul of man has grown old along with nature, and acquainted from
its foundations with the fabric of the universe.

Therefore when it confronts some simple object of sense or emotion, or
the more intricate movements and events of history, or the rushing
storm of the present, the soul has about it strange intimacies, it has
within it preparations drawn from that fellowship with nature
throughout the aeons, the abysses of Eternity. And as the aeons
advance, the soul grows ever more conscious of the end of all its
striving, and its serenity deepens as the certainty of the ultimate
attainment of that end increases.

Baulked of its knowledge of an hour by its ignorance of Eternity, it
attains its rest in the Infinite, which seeking it shall find, piercing
through every moment of the transient to the Eternal. What are the
spaces and the labyrinthian dance of the worlds to the soul which is
ever more profoundly absorbed, remembering, knowing, or in vision made
prescient of its identity with the soul of the universe? And as the
ages recede, the immanence of the Divine becomes more consciously, more
pervadingly present. Earth deepens in mystery; premonitions of its
destiny visit the soul, falling manifold as the shadows of twilight, or
in mysterious tones far-borne and deep as the chords struck by the
sweeping orbs in space.

The soul thus neglects the finite save as an avenue to the infinite,
and holds knowledge in light esteem unless as a path to the wonder, the
ecstasy, and the wisdom which are beyond knowledge. The past is dead,
the present is a dream, the future is not yet, but in the Eternal NOW
the soul is one with that Reality of which the remotest pasts, the
farthest presents, the most distant futures, are but changing phases.

If then we regard the soul, its origin and its destiny, in this manner,
what a wonder of light invests its history within Time! Banished from
its primal abode beyond the crystal walls of space, with what
achievements has not the exile graced the earth, its habitation!
Wondrous indeed is man's course across the earth, and with what shall
the works of his soul be compared? From those first uncertainties,
those faltering elations, the Vision, dimly discerned as yet, lures him
with tremulous ecstasies to eternise the fleeting, and in columned
enclosure and fretted canopy to uprear an image which he can control