Chapter 75 - Page 2

Trophonius, nor Antiparos; nor the
Giant's Causeway. Nor were the subterranean arched sewers of Etruria
channeled in a trice; nor the airy arched aqueducts of Nerva thrown
over their values in the ides of a month. Nor was Virginia's Natural
Bridge worn under in a year; nor, in geology, were the eternal
Grampians upheaved in an age. And who shall count the cycles that
revolved ere earth's interior sedimentary strata were crystalized
into stone. Nor Peak of Piko, nor Teneriffe, were chiseled into
obelisks in a decade; nor had Mount Athos been turned into
Alexander's statue so soon. And the bower of Artaxerxes took a whole
Persian summer to grow; and the Czar's Ice Palace a long Muscovite
winter to congeal. No, no: nor was the Pyramid of Cheops masoned in a
month; though, once built, the sands left by the deluge might
not have submerged such a pile. Nor were the broad boughs of Charles'
Oak grown in a spring; though they outlived the royal dynasties of
Tudor and Stuart. Nor were the parts of the great Iliad put together
in haste; though old Homer's temple shall lift up its dome, when St.
Peter's is a legend. Even man himself lives months ere his Maker
deems him fit to be born; and ere his proud shaft gains its full
stature, twenty-one long Julian years must elapse. And his whole
mortal life brings not his immortal soul to maturity; nor will all
eternity perfect him. Yea, with uttermost reverence, as to human
understanding, increase of dominion seems increase of power; and day
by day new planets are being added to elder-born Saturn, even as six
thousand years ago our own Earth made one more in this system; so, in
incident, not in essence, may the Infinite himself be not less than
more infinite now, than when old Aldebaran rolled forth from his
hand. And if time was, when this round Earth, which to innumerable
mortals has seemed an empire never to be wholly explored; which, in
its seas, concealed all the Indies over four thousand five hundred
years; if time was, when this great quarry of Assyrias and Romes was
not extant; then, time may have been, when the whole material
universe lived its Dark Ages; yea, when the Ineffable Silence,
proceeding from its unimaginable remoteness, espied it as an isle in
the sea. And herein is no derogation. For the Immeasurable's altitude
is not heightened by the arches of Mahomet's heavens; and were all
space a vacuum, yet would it be a fullness; for to Himself His own
universe is He.

Thus deeper and deeper into Time's endless tunnel, does the winged
soul, like a night-hawk, wend her wild way; and finds eternities
before and behind; and her last limit is her everlasting beginning.

But sent over the broad flooded sphere, even Noah's dove came back,
and perched on his