worshipping the stars? Such is to me the secret of
all forms of Paganism. Worship is transcendent wonder; wonder for which
there is now no limit or measure; that is worship. To these primeval
men, all things and everything they saw exist beside them were an emblem
of the Godlike, of some God.

And look what perennial fibre of truth was in that. To us also, through
every star, through every blade of grass, is not a God made visible, if
we will open our minds and eyes? We do not worship in that way now:
but is it not reckoned still a merit, proof of what we call a "poetic
nature," that we recognize how every object has a divine beauty in it;
how every object still verily is "a window through which we may look
into Infinitude itself"? He that can discern the loveliness of things,
we call him Poet! Painter, Man of Genius, gifted, lovable. These poor
Sabeans did even what he does,--in their own fashion. That they did
it, in what fashion soever, was a merit: better than what the entirely
stupid man did, what the horse and camel did,--namely, nothing!

But now if all things whatsoever that we look upon are emblems to us
of the Highest God, I add that more so than any of them is man such
an emblem. You have heard of St. Chrysostom's celebrated saying in
reference to the Shekinah, or Ark of Testimony, visible Revelation of
God, among the Hebrews: "The true Shekinah is Man!" Yes, it is even so:
this is no vain phrase; it is veritably so. The essence of our being,
the mystery in us that calls itself "I,"--ah, what words have we for
such things?--is a breath of Heaven; the Highest Being reveals himself
in man. This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as
a vesture for that Unnamed? "There is but one Temple in the Universe,"
says the devout Novalis, "and that is the Body of Man. Nothing is holier
shall that high form. Bending before men is a reverence done to this
Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human
body!" This sounds much like a mere flourish of rhetoric; but it is not
so. If well meditated, it will turn out to be a scientific fact; the
expression, in such words as can be had, of the actual truth of the
thing. We are the miracle of miracles,--the great inscrutable mystery of
God. We cannot understand it, we know not how to speak of it; but we may
feel and know, if we like, that it is verily so.

Well; these truths were once more readily felt than now. The young
generations o