Page:OptimismBlood.djvu/25

This page needs to be proofread.

SECTION VI.

CONCERNING "THE BEGINNING."

We who began look back for a beginning of all things. But if we will accept an eternal future, we must acknowledge the eternal past equally inevitable. The mind will not consent that space should have its limits, nor that time should end. Yet all creeds speak of The Beginning. Man will not leave unnamed the inconceivable, nor accept a destiny save toward something final. He seeks a place of eternal rest. He clothes his immortality with visible and definite flesh; he builds him an ethereal but tangible heaven; and with an old and fond idolatry he embodies his God. Do we condemn the pagan when he helps his worship with a graven image, while we strive to worship a God whom our imagination can contain? We are of one flesh with the pagan, and like him we would belittle all things to the measure of our comprehension. Yet we know, as he does, that this is not our proper method. And if we would come into intellectual peace we must let up the panting soul, and let her struggle with all indisputable truth. Fear not! for all is well. Fear not, though yours be an eternity with one end; it is an eternity nevertheless. Fear not for the tender sympathy of God, though he be impersonal. Fear not, though you should never attain one glimpse of the Almighty Friend, nor attain one moment's independent power; your power is in better hands—and His smile is greater than that the

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.