your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your
jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as
with your walk and table; till you are intimately acquainted with that
shady nothing out of which the world was made; till you love men so as
to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own;
till you delight in God for being good to all; you never enjoy the
world. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more
present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties
there, than in your own house; till you remember how lately you were
made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice
in the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but to-day
morning.

"Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, till you so love the
beauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade
others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of
men in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of Hell than
willingly be guilty of their error. . . . The world is a mirror of
infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no
man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men
disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to man since he is
fallen than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the Gate of
Heaven. When Jacob waked out of his dream, he said, 'God is here, and
I wist it not. How dreadful is this place! This is none other than
the House of God, and the Gate of Heaven.'"[34]

But notwithstanding his exuberant and overflowing joy in creation,
Traherne is conscious that the world has {332} its "dreggy parts," that
it has been "muddied" by man's misuse of it, and that the havoc of sin
is apparent. The light which shined in infancy becomes eclipsed as the
customs and manners of life close down over it and cover it. Men's
mouths are full of talk of fleeting, vulgar, and worthless things, and
they speak no syllable of those celestial and stable treasures which
form the only wealth of life. The emphasis in education is on the
wrong things. So with much ado the innocent child is "corrupted and
made to learn the dirty devices of the world," which he must again
unlearn and become a little child once more in the Kingdom of God.[35]
The taint, however, is not in the native structure of the soul, it is
not through a biological transmission, it is due t