XXIII. The Abbey
XXIV. Wordsworth
XXV. Dorsetshire
XXVI. Portland
XXVII. Canterbury Tower
XXVIII. Prayer
XXIX. The Death-bed of Jacob
XXX. By the Sea of Galilee
XXXI. The Apocalypse
XXXII. The Statue
XXXIII. The Mystery of Suffering
XXXIV. Music
XXXV. The Faith of Christ
XXXVI. The Mystery of Evil
XXXVII. Renewal
XXXVIII. The Secret
XXXIX. The Message
XL. After Death
XLI. The Eternal Will
XLII. Until the Time
Conclusion

PREFACE

I sate to-day, in a pleasant hour, at a place called _The Seven
Springs_, high up in a green valley of the _Cotswold_ hills. Close
beside the road, seven clear rills ripple out into a small pool, and
the air is musical with the sound of running water. Above me, in a
little thicket, a full-fed thrush sent out one long-drawn cadence after
another, in the joy of his heart, while the lengthening shadows of bush
and tree crept softly over the pale sward of the old pasture-lands, in
the westering light of the calm afternoon.

These springs are the highest head-waters of the _Thames_, and that
fact is stated in a somewhat stilted Latin hexameter carved on a stone
of the wall beside the pool. The so-called _Thames-head_ is in a
meadow down below _Cirencester_, where a deliberate engine pumps up,
from a hidden well, thousands of gallons a day of the purest water,
which begins the service of man at once by helping to swell the scanty
flow of the _Thames_ and _Severn Canal_. But _The Seven Springs_ are
the highest hill-fount of Father _Thames_ for all that, streaming as
they do from the eastward ridge of the great oolite crest of the downs
that overhang _Cheltenham_. As soon as those rills are big enough to
form a stream, the gathering of waters is known as the _Churn_, which,
speeding down by _Rendcomb_ with its ancient oaks, and _Cerney_, in a
green elbow of the valley, join the _Thames_ at _Cricklade_.

It was of the essence of poetry to feel that the water-drops which thus
babbled out at my feet in the spring sunshine would be moving, how many
days hence, beside the green playing-fields at _Eton_, scattered,
diminished, travel-worn, polluted; but still, under night and stars,
through the sunny river-reaches, through hamlet and city, by
water-meadow or wharf, the same and no other. And half in fancy, half
in earnest, I bound upon the heedless waters a little message of love