into a cloud of vapour." Nay; stop ! "I had set My bow in the cloud," says the Lord.
It is as if the first man who discovered what physical fact causes a rainbow to appear had turned away disappointed, saying, "Then this beautiful object is not real; there is nothing there; I only imagined it." Nothing there? There was indeed no-thing there. The rainbow is not a thing; it is a revelation of the very nature of the light by which all things are seen. He had imagined it, of course. For the conceit of man does constantly lead him to this very curious conclusion, viz. that, if a beautiful phenomenon turns out to be made of no tangible material, to exist without anything that appears to our intellect a sufficient cause, then man must have imagined that phenomenon; man, that is, must have made the beauty out of nothing, because God could not do it; is that what we mean?
It seems to me that if we would only consider seriously the lesson taught by the rainbow, we should be led to handle many subjects more wisely and more reverently than we usually do ; and amongst them the subject of the enthusiasm of young people for their favourite heroes and friends, our own enthusiasms as well as those of others. One sees a person from a particular point of view, and gets a vision of goodness and grace which is ideal, and yet seems most intensely real, more real
