Why should the faithful horse be knocked on
the head when it grew old, or the poor cow go to the butcher as a reward
for its long career of usefulness and profit?
What relentless power had thus decreed? In any higher life surely this
decree would be rescinded, and of that side of Nature he had seen more
than enough upon the earth. It was her gentler and harmless aspects from
which he did not wish to part--from the flower and the fruit, from the
springing blade and the ripened corn; from the beauty that brooded
over sea and land; from the glory of the spreading firmament alive with
light, and the winds that blew beneath it, and the rains that washed
the face of earth; from the majestic passage of the glittering stars
shedding their sweet influences through the night. To bid farewell to
such things as these must, to his mind, indeed be terrible.
Once he said as much to Barbara, who thought a while and answered him:
"Why should we be taken beyond all things? If seems scarcely reasonable.
I know we have not much to go on, but did not the Christ speak of
drinking the fruit of the vine 'new with you in my Father's kingdom'?
Therefore surely there must be a growing plant that produces the fruit
and a process directed by intelligence that turns it into wine.
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