ls nor stars, no snapping of bow-strings, no
throbbing of the heart nor change of scene, no magic and melodramatic
drawing back of the curtain from the mysteries; the water and the
bridge, the ragged black trees, and a distant boat that broke the
silvery calm with an arrow of black ripples, all these things were still
before him. But God was there too. God was everywhere about him. This
persuasion was over him and about him; a dome of protection, a power in
his nerves, a peace in his heart. It was an exalting beauty; it was a
perfected conviction.... This indeed was the coming of God, the real
coming of God. For the first time Scrope was absolutely sure that
for the rest of his life he would possess God. Everything that had so
perplexed him seemed to be clear now, and his troubles lay at the foot
of this last complete realization like a litter of dust and leaves in
the foreground of a sunlit, snowy mountain range.

It was a little incredible that he could ever have doubted.

(11)

It was a phase of extreme intellectual clairvoyance. A multitude of
things that hitherto had been higgledy-piggledy, contradictory and
incongruous in his mind became lucid, serene, full and assured. He
seemed to see all things plainly as one sees things plainly through
perfectly clear still water in the shadows of a summer noon. His doubts
about God, his periods of complete forgetfulness and disregard of God,
this conflict of his instincts and the habits and affections of
his daily life with the service of God, ceased to be perplexing
incompatibilities and were manifest as necessary, understandable aspects
of the business of living.

It was no longer a riddle that little immediate things should seem
of more importance than great and final things. For man is a creature
thrusting his way up from the beast to divinity, from the blindness of
individuality to the knowledge of a common end. We stand deep in
the engagements of our individual lives looking up to God, and only
realizing in our moments of exaltation that through God we can escape
from and rule and alter the whole world-wide scheme of individual lives.
Only in phases of illumination do we realize the creative powers that
lie ready to man's hand. Personal affections, immediate obligations,
ambitions, self-seeking, these are among the natural and essential
things of our individual lives, as intimate almost as our primordial
lusts and needs; God, the true God, is a later revelation, a