| The Hidden Life |
Chapter 3 |
Page 4 |
Take another illustration from nature. The dragon-fly is born at the bottom of the pond, and for a time lives there, a low, meagre form of life. It does not know of anything better — that there is a higher sphere where insects and other creatures have wings, and fly in glorious freedom in the sunny air. But one day there comes a wondrous change. Tennyson tells the story well:—
“Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.”
This dragon-fly of the darkness and the mire now breathes heaven’s sweet air. It has wings, which unfold under the impulse of the new life into which it has emerged, and spread themselves out in shining beauty, and the lovely creature soars aloft. It is dead to its old life in the ooze, and lives now in the brightness and the fragrance of the fields and gardens.
This, too, is a picture of the new life in Christ to which human souls may rise. Satisfaction can never be found in mere earthly conditions. In these we are like dragon-flies, living at the bottom of the pond, while our true place is up in the sunny air, with wings outspread, soaring in blessed liberty. Thus only in this new life can our thirsts be satisfied.
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