Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/33

Rh ; from what the Lord's Word elsewhere testifies concerning Eden and the garden that bore its name.

This method of calling certain conditions of life or states of mind by, as it were, local names, is a characteristic of all Scripture, and has been followed by the poets of all time as peculiarly beautiful and expressive. A verse in Moore's Lalla Rookh, illustrates this poetic peculiarity, borrowed from the age of symbolism.

How the force of this passage would be destroyed were we to imagine Elysium as used here, to be a particular province or town in which all young lovers dwelt. It is descriptive, on the contrary, of a state of love and bliss. But should we substitute, in place of the idea of a sentimental passion between two young hearts, that of a condition of perfect love to the Lord, with all the joy, peace and innocence with which that state is so closely bound, and close a couplet poetically descriptive thereof with the exclamation,