Читать книгу Centuries of Meditations - Thomas Traherne - Страница 11

fruits of the earth ; and opens to rich and poor alike the golden doors of enfranchisement and initiation into the mysteries of heroism, purity, wisdom, beauty, and infinite love."

To no man who ever lived were these mysteries more open than to Traherne, and no man was ever more constantly in communion with them. It has been said that most men have only enough religion to make them hate one another; and it is at least certain that in the past religion has more often been the cause of strife and division among mankind than of love and concord. But Traherne at least knew well and acted up to the knowledge that "love is the one supreme duty and good, that love is wisdom and purity and valour and peace, and that its infinite sorrow is infinitely better than the world's richest joy." The love of love filled him and possessed him, guided his every action, and ruled all his thoughts. He lived habitually on the highest levels of spiritual life, without any of those ignoble descents to the depths of sensualism which, in men compounded, as most of us are, more of sense than spirit, too often follow hard upon our moods of exaltation.

In writing his latest work it is plain that Traherne's

design, after he had proceeded a little way in it,* was

to produce a manual of devotion suitable for the mem- bers of the Church of England, and more particularly

* That he intended it at first for one person only we may well believe: but he must have seen as he went on that if it was fitted for the edification of his friend, it was equally well fitted for general use.

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