Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/103

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Elevation of Love and Faith.
99

evil. Error can no more deceive us; evil can no more palm itself off for good, nor selfishness for virtue. These clear-shining luminaries, love, the greater light for the day, faith the lesser light for the night, have dispelled all misconceptions. And they serve for signs of our elevation and progress; they mark the seasons of our changing heart-conditions, and tell of the days and years—the ever-advancing states of truth and love. And they are set in the firmament of heaven—in the spiritual mind, to give light upon the earth, or illuminate its every lower place with spiritual radiance.

Then the previous state, when true love and genuine faith were not as yet possessed, is, as compared with the present state of love and faith, as evening shadow to morning light. And God sees that it is good. And the evening and the morning—this new advance from comparative obscurity into clearer light, are the fourth day the fourth progressive state into which all who press on in the regenerate life will come.

Is life a mystery? Are its paths all darkness and unrest? Not to those who have made even the beginnings of a life of love and faith. Is there any light for the soul? Is there a way out of the shadows which obscure our wanderings? Yes; love throws a radiance over life which dispels all clouds; faith lights up its skies amid its gloomiest nights; true