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them, never suspecting that when we do so we dis-
count their divinity. The more human we are,--
remembering that to err is human,--the nearer
God we are. Of course good and bad are human con-
cepts and are a verdict upon created things as they
stand related to us, promoting or hindering our well-
being. In the councils of the Eternal there is appar-
ently no such distinction.

Man is not only as good as God; some men are a
good deal better, that is, from our point of view;
they attain a degree of excellence of which there is
no hint in nature--moral excellence. It is not until
we treat man as a part of nature--as a product of
the earth as literally as are the trees--that we can
reconcile these contradictions. If we could build up
a composite man out of all the peoples of the earth,
including even the Prussians, he would represent
fairly well the God in nature.

Communing with God is communing with our
own hearts, our own best selves, not with something
foreign and accidental. Saints and devotees have
gone into the wilderness to find God; of course they
took God with them, and the silence and detachment
enabled them to hear the still, small voice of their
own souls, as one hears the ticking of his own watch
in the stillness of the night. We are not cut off, we
are not isolated points; the great currents flow
through us and over us and around us, and unite us
to the whole of nature. Moses saw God in the burn-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Accepting the Universe: Essays in Naturalism. Contributors: John Burroughs - author. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin. Place of Publication: Boston. Publication Year: 1920. Page Number: 113.
    
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