Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/286

256 in his dreams of the New Jerusalem—there are moments when results of this sort, suggesting the greater possible results of future artistic and scientific effort, give the theory of divinity as absolutely immanent in man a proud significance. We then comprehend the full purport of the Genesitic record,—"Ye shall be as gods." The words of the Psalmist have a startling verity,—"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High." We remember that one who declared himself the direct offspring and very portion of the Unknown Power, and in evidence stood upon his works alone, repeated these words,—by inference recognizing a share of Deity within each child of earth. The share allotted to such a mould as Shakespeare's evoked Hartley Coleridge's declaration:—

But what was the old notion of the act of divine The infinite process. creation? That which reduced divinity to the sprite of folk-lore, who by a word, a spell, or the wave of a wand, evoked a city, a person, an army, out of the void. The Deity whom we adore in our generation has taken us into his work-shop. We see that he creates, as we construct,