Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/55

Rh and nourishing within his heart that tree of life which is the love of God. And so it goes on through the entire Scripture. Waters correspond to the eternal truths of God.

As the firmament signifies the spiritual mind, what is under the firmament means all that is beneath the spiritual; in other words, that is worldly and natural. The waters under the firmament, then, are holy truths as they exist in the external or natural mind; the waters above the firmament are the same truths as they exist in the spiritual or internal mind. From early childhood on we learn truths concerning heaven and eternal life. Amid our worst surroundings we get them somehow or in some way. Amid better surroundings we learn of them even by the common conversation of play-mates. We hear of God as the Maker of all things, and of heaven as the place where we go if we are good. We learn of the sacredness of the Sabbath. If we go to Sunday-school or if we have God-fearing parents, we are taught much more than this, besides little prayers, Scripture texts and Bible stories; and the sacred influences of church worship cling to us ever closely. All we thus learn goes at least into the memory, even though it affects us but little, even though when we come to adult age, we care little for it, or worse yet, are skeptical with regard to it. These truths have become implanted in the