Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/151

Rh Jerusalem descends out of heaven from God. Can we have any truth which is not his? Can we have any enlightenment except from Him? The river of spiritual wisdom, in its refreshing of the understanding and its quickening of the life, flows always from Him. It is the river of Eden, the water of life, whose fountain-head is the throne of God and the Lamb. It flows to mind and heart; and it gives to him who receives it the power to live an intelligently holy life, and to perform the duties of existence not only in a rational way, but in the spirit and faith of Him in whose name it is done. This living water is '"clear as crystal." There is nothing so clear to the receptive mind as spiritual truth. The natural mind does not think so; but that does not alter the fact. The sun is not clearer in its shining, than the apprehension of divine truth by the spiritually awakened intellect. But as the faculties suited to the apprehension of mathematics, or music, or poetry, must be aroused before their higher truths become clear or cognizable, so must it be with truths of spiritual wisdom. Without the proper quickening of the spiritual faculties, these truths will remain obscure or altogether unseen; with it, they will be pellucid as the mountain spring; clear as transparent crystal.

But in the Holy City was to be reproduced another feature of the Garden of Eden, and a 13