Do I not now discern the deeper meaning in "_Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent_?" Do I not better understand with what vision and rapture the
profoundest of the disciples exclaims, "The Son of God is come, and hath
given us an understanding that we might know Him that is True?"[79]
Having opened correspondence with the Eternal Environment, the
subsequent stages are in the line of all other normal development. We
have but to continue, to deepen, to extend, and to enrich the
correspondence that has been begun. And we shall soon find to our
surprise that this is accompanied by another and parallel process. The
action is not all upon our side. The Environment also will be found to
correspond. The influence of Environment is one of the greatest and most
substantial of modern biological doctrines. Of the power of Environment
to form or transform organisms, of its ability to develop or suppress
function, of its potency in determining growth, and generally of its
immense influence in Evolution, there is no need now to speak. But
Environment is now acknowledged to be one of the most potent factors in
the Evolution of Life. The influence of Environment too seems to
increase rather than diminish as we approach the higher forms of being.
The highest forms are the most mobile; their capacity of change is the
greatest; they are, in short, most easily acted on by Environment. And
not only are the highest organisms the most mobile, but the highest part
of the highest organisms are more mobile than the lower. Environment can
do little, comparatively, in the direction of inducing variation in the
body of a child: but how plastic is its mind! How infinitely sensitive
is its soul! How infallibly can it be turned to music or to dissonance
by the moral harmony or discord of its outward lot! How decisively
indeed are we not all formed and moulded, made or unmade, by external
circumstance! Might we not all confess with Ulysses--
"I am a part of all that I have met."
Much more, then, shall we look for the influence of Environment on the
spiritual nature of him who has opened correspondence with God. Reaching
out his eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world around him,
shall he not become spiritual? In vital contact with Holiness, shall he
not become holy? Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, shall
he miss becoming pure? Walking with God from day to day, shall he fail
to be taught of God?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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