1st Corinthians): 'Here we see in a glass darkly,' and
Goethe: 'Everything transitory is but a similitude.'

God (says St Chrysostom again) has placed man in the world as in
a royal palace gleaming with gold and precious stones; but the
wonderful thing about this palace is, that it is not made of
stone, but of far costlier material; he has not lighted up a
golden candelabra, but given lights their fixed course in the
roof of the palace, where they are not only useful to us, but an
object of great delight.[13]

The Roman secular writers of the first Christian centuries had not
this depth of thought and sadness; but from them too we have notable
descriptions of Nature in which personal pleasure and sympathy are
evident motives as well as religious feeling.

In the little _Octavius_ of Minucius Felix, a writing full of genuine
human feeling of the time of Commodus, the mixture of the heathen
culture and opinions of antiquity with the Christian way of thinking
has a very modern ring. The scenery is finely sketched.

The heats of summer being over, autumn began to be temperate ...
we (two friends, a heathen and a Christian) agreed to go to the
delightful city of Ostia.... As, at break of day, we were
proceeding along the banks of the Tiber towards the sea, that the
soft breeze might invigorate our limbs, and that we might enjoy
the pleasure of feeling the beach gently subside under our
footsteps, Caecilius observed an image of Serapis, and having
raised his hands to his lips, after the wont of the superstitious
vulgar, he kissed it.... Then Octavius said: 'It is not the part
of a good man, brother Marcus, thus to leave an intimate
companion and friend amidst blind popular ignorance, and to
suffer him, in such open daylight, to stumble against stones,'
etc.... Discoursing after this sort, we traversed the space
between Ostia and the sea, and arrived at the open coast. There
the gentle surges had smoothed the outermost sands like a
pleasure walk, and as the sea, although the winds blow not, is
ever unquiet, it came forward to the shore, not hoary and
foaming, but with waves gently swelling and curled. On this
occasion we were agreeably amused by the varieties of its
appearance, for, as we stood on the margin and dipped the soles
of our feet in the water, the wave alternately struck at us, and
then receding,