uch more, as it is at this
day."[20]

Like his predecessors in this faith, Traherne is never tired of
declaring the infiniteness of the human soul. Eternity is in the human
heart, if only the way of the open door is taken, if only the eyes are
opened to see. God, he says, has made our spirits "centres in
eternity," opening upon "innumerable infinities." The Ocean is but a
drop of a bucket to the immensity of the soul, with its abysmal deeps
and its immeasurable capacities. It is the very essence and being of
the soul to feel infinity, for "God is ever more near to us than we are
to ourselves, so that we cannot feel our own souls without feeling
Him."[21] "You are never," he says, "your true self, till you live
{329} by your soul more than by your body, and you never live by your
soul until you feel its incomparable excellence."[22] Its nobility is
revealed by its insatiable hungers, its surpassing dignity is declared
by its endless wants, its inability to live by bread alone. "As by the
seed we conjecture what plant will arise, and know by the acorn what
tree will grow forth, or by the eagle's egg what kind of bird; so do we
by the powers of the soul upon earth, know what kind of Being, Person,
and Glory will be in the Heavens, where its latent powers shall be
turned into Act, its inclinations shall be completed, and its
capacities filled."[23]

Not only in a primitive Eden, but in the world as we know it, with its
black and white, man always bears within himself the mark of a heavenly
origin, and has the quickening Seed of God in the depth of his soul:
"The Image of God is seated in the lineaments of the soul." Man is the
greatest of all miracles; he is "a mirror of all Eternity."[24] His
thoughts run out to everlasting; he is made for spiritual supremacy and
has within himself an inner, hidden life greater than anything else in
the universe.[25] We are "nigh of kin to God" and "nigh of kin

To those pure things we find
In His great mind
Who made the world."[26]

There is

A Spiritual World standing within
An Universe enclosed in Skin.[27]

With the same enthusiasm with which he proclaims the divine origin and
the heavenly connections of the soul, Traherne also proclaims the glory
and beauty of the visible world as a revelation of God.

Eternity stooped down to nought
And in the earth its likeness sought.[28]

The world is not God, for He is Spirit, but the world is "a glorious