Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/86

 contain within it every truth of the infinite mind, just as nature contains all of natural law. God could not communicate to us a knowledge of natural laws by giving us a text-book of dictionary definitions. But desiring to communicate the knowledge of them to us, He wrapped them up in clay, and presented them in working order as they are in nature. There we can learn of them in their practical aspect, and possess them in working order and form. He likewise presents spiritual truths to us, not lifeless, fragmentary, encyclopedic definitions, but in their reality and working order. To do so, He has clothed His infinite truth and life in the individual, civil, and spiritual thought and experience of men, and presented them to us in the narrative of the Word. In the Word by means of history, poem, song, and narrative, the infinite truth is pictured, or mirrored down and out from God to man. The Word is as a unit a Divine allegory, the interpretation of which is God the Creator. In it God speaks to His followers in the terms of human idea and experience, as only He can. The Word, being allegorical in form, is adapted to the states and conditions of every one throughout time. As man advances, his interpretation of the Word is exalted. God's Spirit has moved on and down the ages to bring together at last