To those who have discarded
supernatural religion, it may be a religion, or at all events
the foundation to build one on. For there is no comfort to
the healthy natural man in being told that the good he does
will not be interred with his bones, since he does not wish to
think, and in fact refuses to think, that his bones will ever
be interred. Joy in the "choir invisible" is to him a mere
poetic fancy, or at best a rarefied transcendentalism, which
fails to sustain him. If altruism, or the religion of
humanity, is a living vigorous plant, and as some believe
flourishes more with the progress of the centuries, it must,
like other "soul-growths," have a deeper, tougher woodier root
in our soil.
Chapter Eight: A Gold Day At Silchester
It is little to a man's profit to go far afield if his chief
pleasure be in wild life, his main object to get nearer to the
creatures, to grow day by day more intimate with them, and to
see each day some new thing. Yet the distance has the same
fascination for him as for another--the call is as sweet and
persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level country
with blue hills on the horizon, then, especially in the early
morning, is the call sweetest, most irresistible. Come away
--come away: this blue world has better things than any in
that green, too familiar place. The startling scream of the
jay--you have heard it a thousand times.
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