Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/101

Rh shall we ascribe those attributes to Him, the reception of whose spirit alone it is that makes one a Christian?

How then are we to understand the Scripture which seems to attribute cursings to God? The answer is simple. In the literal sense, the language of the Bible is that of appearance; in the spiritual sense it is that of reality. And that meaning is generally attributed to it by man, which accords with his own instincts. This last assertion is true of our every-day conversation. If a man is brutal, there is an element of brutality entering into his conception of every word that is addressed to him. If he is sensual, there is to him an element of sensuality which enters into every expression that he hears. If he is essentially immodest, his mind instinctively turns the purest words into expressions of beastly sentiment. But if he is spiritual, to him all things are clothed with spirituality; if pure, all things with purity.

To all expressions, therefore, there is a higher import and a lower. The lower the thought, the lower the sense it will attach to words; the higher the thought, the more elevated the idea, and the more exalted its conception of the meaning which expressions are designed to convey. And this has caused the world's trouble in construing holy Writ. A pagan age has invested its terms with pagan meanings; a sensuous age with sensuous