For
to "have been," and to "be hereafter," are not eternal. And while we
were discoursing and panting after her, we slightly touched on her
with the whole effort of our heart; and we sighed, and there we
leave bound the first fruits of the Spirit; and returned to vocal
expressions of our mouth, where the word spoken has beginning and end.
And what is like unto Thy Word, our Lord, who endureth in Himself
without becoming old, and maketh all things new?
We were saying then: If to any the tumult of the flesh were
hushed, hushed the images of earth, and waters, and air, hushed also
the pole of heaven, yea the very soul be hushed to herself, and by not
thinking on self surmount self, hushed all dreams and imaginary
revelations, every tongue and every sign, and whatsoever exists only
in transition, since if any could hear, all these say, We made not
ourselves, but He made us that abideth for ever- If then having
uttered this, they too should be hushed, having roused only our ears
to Him who made them, and He alone speak, not by them but by
Himself, that we may hear His Word, not through any tongue of flesh,
nor Angel's voice, nor sound of thunder, nor in the dark riddle of a
similitude, but might hear Whom in these things we love, might hear
His Very Self without these (as we two now strained ourselves, and
in swift thought touched on that Eternal Wisdom which abideth over
all); -could this be continued on, and other visions of kind far
unlike be withdrawn, and this one ravish, and absorb, and wrap up
its beholder amid these inward joys, so that life might be for ever
like that one moment of understanding which now we sighed after;
were not this, Enter into thy Master's joy? And when shall that be?
When we shall all rise again, though we shall not all be changed?
Such things was I speaking, and even if not in this very manner, and
these same words, yet, Lord, Thou knowest that in that day when we
were speaking of these things, and this world with all its delights
became, as we spake, contemptible to us, my mother said, "Son, for
mine own part I have no further delight in any thing in this life.
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