Ch. 18 - Faith and Knowledge - Page 2

but on the whole bouquet. The beauty of harmony is an instinct
in us; it lies in our eyes and in our ears, those bridges between our
soul and the creation around us--in all our senses there is such a
divine, such an entire and perfect stream in our whole being, a
striving after the harmonious, as it shows itself in all created
things, even in the pulsations of the air, made visible in Chladni's
figures.

In the Bible we find the expression: "God in spirit and in
truth,"--and hence we most significantly find an expression for the
admission of what we call a feeling of the beautiful; for what else is
this revelation of God but spirit and truth? And just as our own soul
shines out of the eye and the fine movement around the mouth, so does
the created image shine forth from God in spirit and truth. There is
harmonious beauty from the smallest leaf and flower to the large,
swelling bouquet, from our earth itself to the numberless globes in
the firmamental space--as far as the eye sees, as far as science
ventures, all, small and great, is beauty and harmony.

But if we turn to mankind, for whom we have the highest, the holiest
expression; "created in God's image," man, who is able to comprehend
and admit in himself all God's creation, the harmony in the harmony
then seems to be defective, for at our birth we are all equal! as
creatures we have equally "no right to demand;" yet how differently
God has granted us abilities! some few so immensely great, others so
mean! At our birth God places us in our homes and positions; and to
how many of us are allotted the hardest struggles! We are placed
_there_, introduced _there_--how many may not say justly: "It were
better for me that I had never been born!"

Human life, consequently--the highest here on the earth--does not come
under the laws of harmonious beauty: it is inconceivable, it is an
injustice, and thus cannot take place.

The defect of harmony in life lies in this:--that we only see a small
part thereof, namely, existence here on the earth: there must be a
life to come--an immortality.

That, the smallest flower preaches to us, as does all that is created
in beauty and harmony.

If our existence ceased with death here, then the most perfect work of
God was not perfect; God was not justice and love, as everything in
nature and revelation affirms; and if we be referred to the whole of
mankind, as that wherein harmony will reveal itself, then our whole
actions and endeavours are but as the labours of the coral-insect:
mankind becomes but a monument of greatness to the Creator: he would
then only have raised His _glory_, not shown His greatest _love_.
Loving-kindness is not self-love.