In S. John's reflections in _A Death in the Desert_, a similar suggestion of mysticism is modified by the medium through which it has passed. The Christian teacher who wrote that "God is Love," and that in the knowledge of this truth immortality itself consists, propounds for himself a question similar to that which has so hopeless a ring when issuing from the mouth of the Greek. Is it for nothing we grow old and weak? A suggestion of the character of the answer is found in the conclusion of the question, "We whom God loves." Can they share --They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength About each spirit, that needs must bide its time, Living and learning still as years assist Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see-- With me who hardly am withheld at all, But shudderingly, scarce a shred between, Lie bare to the universal prick of light?[30] True is the lament of the reply to Protus. We struggle, fain to enlarge Our bounded physical recipiency, Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life, Repair the waste of age and sickness. (ll. 244-247.) All too true. But if, as we are assured, there is no waste in Nature, whence comes the apparent destruction wrought by age and sickness? What the design of which it is the evidence? In the words of the Christian mystic, but to admit "the universal prick of light," to effect the union of the individual soul with that central fire of which it is an emanation; when the training and development inseparable from suffering shall have done their work, since "when pain ends, gain ends too." Thy body at its best, How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?[31] The decay, it must be, of its temporal habitation which shall bring to the soul eternal freedom. To the Greek, on the other hand, with the decay of the body, passed not only all that made life worth living, but the life itself. The keener the appreciation of life, the harder, therefore, the parting of soul from body. He, indeed, Sees the wider but to sigh the more. "Most progress is most failure." Failure absolute if death is the end of life; failure relative and indicative of higher, vaster potentialities of being, if that dream of a moment's yearning might be true, if death prove itself but "the throbbing impulse" to a fuller life; if, freed by it, man bursts "as the worm into the fly," becoming a creature of that future state Unlimited in capability For joy, as this is in desire for joy. But to the Greek the door of actuality remains fast closed.