not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of Yes and No,
She sees the Best that glimmers through the Worst,
She feels the sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro' the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wail'd 'Mirage!'"

TENNYSON, _The Ancient Sage_.

"Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognises and
worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us;
and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form.
Everything that lies between these two is idolatry."

GOETHE.

"My wish is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the
external world, in like manner within and inside me."

KEPLER.

"Getrost, das Leben schreitet
Zum ew'gen Leben hin;
Von innrer Gluth geweitet
Verklaert sich unser Sinn.
Die Sternwelt wird zerfliessen
Zum goldnen Lebenswein,
Wir werden sie geniessen
Und lichte Sterne sein.

"Die Lieb' ist freigegeben
Und keine Trennung mehr
Es wogt das volle Leben
Wie ein unendlich Meer.
Nur eine Nacht der Wonne,
Ein ewiges Gedicht!
Und unser Aller Sonne
Ist Gottes Angesicht."

NOVALIS.

NATURE-MYSTICISM--_continued_

"The invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, even
His everlasting power and Divinity."--ROM. i. 20.

In my last Lecture I showed how the later Mysticism emancipated itself
from the mischievous doctrine that the spiritual eye can only see when
the eye of sense is closed. After the Reformation period the mystic
tries to look with both eyes; his aim is to see God in all things, as
well as all things in God. He returns with better resources to the
task of the primitive religions, and tries to find spiritual law in
the natural world. It is true that a strange crop of superstitions,
the seeds of which had been sown long before, sprang up to mock his
hopes. In necromancy, astrology, alchemy, palmistry, table-turning,
and other delusions, we have what some count the essence, and others
the reproach, of Mysticism. But these are, strictly speaking,
scientific and not religious errors. From the standpoint of religion
and philosophy, the important change is that, in the belief of these
later mystics, the n