as yet stand hidden in the depth
of that late Time!

"Or thinkest thou it were impossible, unimaginable? Is the Past
annihilated, then, or only past; is the Future non-extant, or only
future? Those mystic faculties of thine, Memory and Hope, already
answer: already through those mystic avenues, thou the Earth-blinded
summonest both Past and Future, and communest with them, though as yet
darkly, and with mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop down,
the curtains of To-morrow roll up; but Yesterday and To-morrow both
_are_. Pierce through the Time-element, glance into the Eternal. Believe
what thou findest written in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul, even as all
Thinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there: that Time and Space
are not God, but creations of God; that with God as it is a universal
HERE, so is it an everlasting Now.

"And seest thou therein any glimpse of IMMORTALITY?--O Heaven! Is the
white Tomb of our Loved One, who died from our arms, and had to be left
behind us there, which rises in the distance, like a pale, mournfully
receding Milestone, to tell how many toilsome uncheered miles we have
journeyed on alone,--but a pale spectral Illusion! Is the lost Friend
still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here mysteriously, with
God!--know of a truth that only the Time-shadows have perished, or are
perishable; that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and
whatever will be, is even now and forever. This, should it unhappily
seem new, thou mayest ponder at thy leisure; for the next twenty years,
or the next twenty centuries: believe it thou must; understand it thou
canst not.

"That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once for all, we are
sent into this Earth to live, should condition and determine our whole
Practical reasonings, conceptions, and imagings or imaginings,
seems altogether fit, just, and unavoidable. But that they should,
furthermore, usurp such sway over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind
us to the wonder everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit
Space and Time to their due rank as Forms of Thought; nay even, if thou
wilt, to their quite undue rank of Realities: and consider, then,
with thyself how their thin disguises hide from us the brightest
God-effulgences! Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth my
hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand
and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and thither.