Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/50

46 appreciation of the beautiful and good; and a sense of yearning for something better than all this selfish toil and trouble thrills through its every energy, and a ray of light flashes through the mind giving it to comprehend somewhat of those better things and that better way for which the heart has yearned. It is the voice of God. No sound is heard. It is recognized only in the form of a gentle influence, whose Divine forces would lead us to things above our place of standing.

We shall have occasion, in our consideration of this history of the Creation, to read this expression quite often—"And God said," so let us be sure that we understand it well. Its meaning in every instance is, "There was a dictate of God to the heart."

So also when the parable giving forth the voice of God, says, "Let there be!" it means, "Let there be developed," or Let it come to the consciousness of the regenerating individual. And when it says, "And God so made it," it means, "And God so developed it or brought it to his consciousness." So the creation of the firmament which God is said to have made, is, from the spiritual idea, the bringing to man's consciousness the fact that there is a firmament, a heaven, a higher region of the mind, an elevated faculty of living and doing, which is above earthly thoughts and its vanities, earthly love