he can be its voice.  None have it yet; but some of our friends, perhaps, are nearer than the religious world at large, because neither ready to dogmatize, as if they had got it, nor content to stop short with mere impressions and presumptuous hopes.  I feel that a great truth is coming.  Sometimes it seems as if we should have it among us in a day.  Many steps of the Temple have been ascended, steps of purest alabaster, and of shining jasper, also of rough-brick, and slippery moss-grown stone.  We shall reach what we long for, since we trust and do not fear, for our God knows not fear, only reverence, and his plan is All in All.’

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’Who can expect to utter an absolutely pure and clear tone on these high subjects?  Our earthly atmosphere is too gross to permit it.  Yet, a severe statement has rather an undue charm for me, as I have a nature of great emotion, which loves free abandonment.  I am ready to welcome a descending Moses, come to turn all men from idolatries.  For my priests have been very generally of the Pagan greatness, revering nature and seeking excellence, but in the path of progress, not of renunciation.  The lyric inspirations of the poet come very differently on the ear from the “still, small voice.”  They are, in fact, all one revelation; but one must be at the centre to interpret it.  To that centre I have again and again been drawn, but my large natural life has been, as yet, but partially transfused with spiritual consciousness.  I shun a premature narrowness, and bide my time.  But I am drawn to look at natures who take a different way, because they seem to complete my being for me.  They, too, tolerate me in my many phases for the same reason, probably.  It pleased me to see, in one of the figures by which the Gnostics illustrated the progress of man, that Severity corresponded to Magnificence.’

* * * * *

’In my quiet retreat, I read Xenophon, and became more acquainted with his Socrates.  I had before known only the Socrates of Plato, one much more to my mind.  Socrates conformed to the Greek Church, and it is evident with a sincere reverence, because it was the growth of the national mind.  He thought best to stand on its platform, and to illustrate, though with keen truth, by received forms.  This was his right way, as his influence was naturally private, for individuals who could in some degree respond to the teachings of his daemon; he knew the multitude would not understand him.  But it was the other way that Jesus took, preaching in the fields, and plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath.’

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