Strange how men shun him
as he waits in the shadow, watching our puny straining after
immortality, sending his comrade sleep to prepare us for himself.
When the hour strikes he comes--very gently, very tenderly, if we
will but have it so--folds the tired hands together, takes the way-
worn feet in his broad strong palm; and lifting us in his wonderful
arms he bears us swiftly down the valley and across the waters of
Remembrance.
Very pleasant art thou, O Brother Death, thy love is wonderful,
passing the love of women.
* * * * * *
To-day I have lived in a whirl of dust. To-morrow is the great
annual Cattle Fair at E-, and through the long hot hours the beasts
from all the district round have streamed in broken procession
along my road, to change hands or to die. Surely the lordship over
creation implies wise and gentle rule for intelligent use, not the
pursuit of a mere immediate end, without any thought of community
in the great sacrament of life.
For the most part mystery has ceased for this working Western
world, and with it reverence. Coventry Patmore says: "God clothes
Himself actually and literally with His whole creation. Herbs take
up and assimilate minerals, beasts assimilate herbs, and God, in
the Incarnation and its proper Sacrament, assimilates us, who, says
St Augustine, 'are God's beasts.'" It is man in his blind self-
seeking who separates woof from weft in the living garment of God,
and loses the more as he neglects the outward and visible signs of
a world-wide grace.
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