It is perfectly possible,
and ultimately conceivable, that the crocodile and the lamb may have
descended from the same ancestral atom of protoplasm; and that the
physical laws of the operation of calcareous slime and of meadow grass,
on that protoplasm, may in time have developed the opposite natures and
aspects of the living frames but the practically important fact for us
is the existence of a power which creates that calcareous earth itself,
--which creates, that separately--and quartz, separately; and gold,
separately; and charcoal, separately; and then so directs the relation
of these elements as that the gold shall destroy the souls of men by
being yellow; and the charcoal destroy their souls by being hard and
bright; and the quartz represent to them an ideal purity; and the
calcareous earth, soft, shall beget crocodiles, and dry and hard, sheep;
and that the aspects and qualities of these two products, crocodiles and
lambs, shall be, the one repellant to the spirit of man, the other
attractive to it, in a quite inevitable way; representing to him states
of moral evil and good; and becoming myths to him of destruction or
redemption, and, in the most literal sense, "words" of God.
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