These may seem daring words. I am sorry that they do; but I am helpless to soften them. Discover any other meaning of the text if you are able;--but be sure that it _is_ a meaning--a meaning in your head and heart;--not a subtle gloss, nor a shifting of one verbal expression into another, both idealess. I repeat, that, to me, the verse has, and can have, no other signification than this--that the soul of man is a mirror of the mind of God. A mirror dark, distorted, broken, use what blameful words you please of its state; yet in the main, a true mirror, out of which alone, and by which alone, we can know anything of God at all. "How?" the reader, perhaps, answers indignantly. "I know the nature of God by revelation, not by looking into myself." Revelation to what? To a nature incapable of receiving truth? That cannot be; for only to a nature capable of truth, desirous of it, distinguishing it, feeding upon it, revelation is possible. To a being undesirous of it, and hating it, revelation is impossible. There can be none to a brute, or fiend. In so far, therefore, as you love truth, and live therein, in so far revelation can exist for you;--and in so far, your mind is the image of God's. § 12. But consider farther, not only _to_ what, but _by_ what, is the revelation. By sight? or word? If by sight, then to eyes which see justly. Otherwise, no sight would be revelation. So far, then, as your sight is just, it is the image of God's sight. If by words,--how do you know their meanings? Here is a short piece of precious word revelation, for instance. "God is love." Love! yes. But what is _that_? The revelation does not tell you that, I think. Look into the mirror, and you will see. Out of your own heart you may know what love is. In no other possible way,--by no other help or sign. All the words and sounds ever uttered, all the revelations of cloud, or flame, or crystal, are utterly powerless. They cannot tell you, in the smallest point, what love means. Only the broken mirror can. § 13. Here is more revelation. "God is just!" Just! What is that? The revelation cannot help you to discover. You say it is dealing equitably or equally. But how do you discern the equality? Not by inequality of mind; not by a mind incapable of weighing, judging, or distributing. If the lengths seem unequal in the broken mirror, for you they are unequal; but if they seem equal, then the mirror is true. So far as you recognize equality, and your conscience tells you what is just, so far your mind is the image of God's: and so far as you do _not_ discern this nature of justice or equality, the words "God is just" bring no revelation to you.