thin the reach of all. The eye of the humblest spirit may
discern it. For He who respecteth not the persons of His children hath
not set it afar off, unapproachable save to the proud and lofty; but
hath made its refreshing fountains to murmur, as it were, at the very
door of our hearts. But in the encumbering hurry of the world we
perceive it not; in the noise of our daily vanities we hear not the
waters of Siloah which go softly. We look widely abroad; we lose
ourselves in vain speculation; we wander in the crooked paths of those
who have gone before us; yea, in the language of one of the old fathers,
we ask the earth and it replieth not, we question the sea and its
inhabitants, we turn to the sun, and the moon, and the stars of heaven,
and they may not satisfy us; we ask our eyes, and they cannot see, and
our ears, and they cannot hear; we turn to books, and they delude us; we
seek philosophy, and no response cometh from its dead and silent
learning.

(August. Soliloq. Cap. XXXI. "Interrogavi Terram," etc.)

"It is not in the sky above, nor in the air around, nor in the earth
beneath; it is in our own spirits, it lives within us; and if we would
find it, like the lost silver of the woman of the parable, we must look
at home, to the inward temple, which the inward eye discovereth, and
wherein the spirit of all truth is manifested. The voice of that spirit
is still and small, and the light about it shineth in darkness. But
truth is there; and if we seek it in low humility, in a patient waiting
upon its author, with a giving up of our natural pride of knowledge, a
seducing of self, a quiet from all outward endeavor, it will assuredly
be revealed and fully made known. For as the angel rose of old from the
altar of Manoah even so shall truth arise from the humbling sacrifice of
self-knowledge and human vanity, in all its eternal and ineffable
beauty.

"Seekest thou, like Pilate, after truth? Look thou within. The holy
principle is there; that in whose light the pure hearts of all time have
rejoiced. It is 'the great light of ages' of which Pythagoras speaks,
the 'good spirit' of Socrates; the 'divine mind' of Anaxagoras; the
'perfect principle' of Plato; the 'infallible and immortal law, and
divine power of reason' of Philo. It is the 'unbegotten principle and
source of all light,' whereof Timmus testifieth; the 'interior guide of
the soul and everlasting foundation of virtue,' spoken of by Plutarch.