GREAT POSSESSIONS
(1913)
"YOU never know yourself," says Thomas Traherne, "till you know more than your own body. The Image of God was not seated in the features of your face but in the lineaments of your soul. In the knowledge of your powers, inclinations, and principles, the knowledge of yourself chiefly consisteth. . . . The world is but a little centre in comparison of you . . . like a gentleman's house to one that is travelling, it is a long time before you come unto it—you pass it in an instant—and you leave it for ever. The omnipresence and eternity of God are your fellows and companions. Your understanding comprehends the world like the dust of a balance, measures Heaven with a span, and esteems a thousand years but as one day."
To this statement of man's comprehensive powers, a further one might legitimately be added: You shall never know delight, till you delight in more than your own body.
Man's body being the crucible wherein such vast things come to be tested, "Eternal Delights are," says Traherne, in a further passage, "its only fit enjoyment."
His doctrine is remarkable in this, that while he tends to see in everything a spiritual significance, and almost refuses to find beauty
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