It is
run through by many different laws; governed by many distinct forces,
each of which strives to control it wholly--but never does.
Selfishness blows on it like a parching sirocco, and all things
seem to bow to the might of selfishness. Generosity moves across the
expanse, and all things are seen responsive to what is generous. Place
yourself where life is lowest and everything like an avalanche is
rushing to the bottom. Place yourself where character is highest, and
lo! the whole world is but one struggle upward to what is high. You
see what you care to see, and find what you wish to find.
In his story of the Forest and the Heart he had wanted to trace but
one law, and he had traced it; he had drawn all things together and
bent them before its majesty: the ancient law of Sacrifice. Of old the
high sacrificed to the low; afterwards the low to the high: once the
sacrifice of others; now the sacrifice of ourselves; but always in
ourselves of the lower to the higher in order that, dying, we may
live.
With this law he had made his story a story of the world.
The star on the Tree bore it back to Chaldaea; the candle bore it to
ancient Persia; the cross bore it to the Nile and Isis and Osiris; the
dove bore it to Syria; the bell bore it to Confucius; the drum bore it
to Buddha; the drinking horn to Greece; the tinsel to Romulus and
Rome; the doll to Abraham and Isaac; the masks to Gaul; the mistletoe
to Britain,--and all brought it to Christ,--Christ the latest
world-ideal of sacrifice that is self-sacrifice and of the giving of
all for all.
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