It
spins and weaves their fleece into wild tapestry, rends it, and renews;
and flits and flames, and whispers, among the golden threads, thrilling
them with a plectrum of strange fire that traverses them to and fro, and
is enclosed in them like life.
It enters into the surface of the earth, subdues it, and falls together
with it into fruitful dust, from which can be moulded flesh; it joins
itself, in dew, to the substance of adamant, and becomes the green leaf
out of the dry ground; it enters into the separated shapes of the earth
it has tempered, commands the ebb and flow of the current of their life,
fills their limbs with its own lightness, measures their existence by its
indwelling pulse, moulds upon their lips the words by which one soul can
be known to another; is to them the hearing of the ear, and the beating
of the heart; and, passing away, leaves them to the peace that hears and
moves no more.
99. This was the Athena of the greatest people of the days of old. And
opposite to the temple of this Spirit of the breath, and life-blood, of
man and beast, stood, on the Mount of Justice, and near the chasm which
was haunted by the goddess-Avengers, an altar to a God unknown,--
proclaimed at last to them, as one who, indeed, gave to all men, life,
and breath, and all things; and rain from heaven, filling their hearts
with rain from heaven, filling their hearts with food and gladness; a God
who had made of one blood all nations of men who dwell on the face of all
the earth, and had determined the times of their fate, and the bounds of
their habitation.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140