A child might have told us that matter is not
almighty, that minds are sometimes transparent to one another, that love
and faith can work wonders. And we also know that, in this mortal life,
our means are exquisitely adapted to our ends; and that we can gain no
solid comfort or advantage by striving to elbow our way a few inches
further into the region of the occult and abnormal. Magic, however
specious its achievements, is only a mockery of the Creative power, and
exposes its unlikeness to it. "It is the attribute of natural existence,"
a profound writer has said, "to be a form of use to something higher than
itself, so that whatever does not, either potentially or actually, possess
within it this soul of use, does not honestly belong to nature, but is a
sensational effect produced upon the individual intelligence." [Footnote:
Henry James, in "Society the Redeemed Form of Man."]
No one can overstep the order and modesty of general existence without
bringing himself into perilous proximity to subjects more profound and
sacred than the occasion warrants. Life need not be barren of mystery and
miracle to any one of us; but they shall be such tender mysteries and
instructive miracles as the devotion of motherhood, and the blooming of
spring.
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