Looking through Vivyen Bremner's thoughtful little book I Tune the Instrument, I was struck by a passage from Thomas Traherne -- the second of the two below. I made me look again, as I hadn't done for years, at the Centuries of Meditations, and I was enchanted all over again at the wealth of beauty and wisdom in their pages. So I will share some of them in the coming weeks. Here are two to begin with: the first with its allusion to the English Civil War, the second with its almost William Blake-like ecstatic penetrating into the world around us through and in the Spirit.

I.   I will not by the noise of bloody wars and the dethroning of kings advance you to glory: but by the gentle ways of peace and love. As a deep friendship meditates and intends the deepest designs for the advancement of its objects, so doth it shew itself in choosing the sweetest and most delightful methods, whereby not to weary but please the person it desireth to advance. Where Love administers physic, its tenderness is expressed in balms and cordials. It hateth corrosives, and is rich in its administrations. Even so, God designing to show His Love in exalting you hath chosen the ways of ease and repose by which you should ascend. And I after His similitude will lead you into paths plain and familiar, where all envy, rapine, bloodshed, complaint and malice shall be far removed; and nothing appear but contentment and thanksgiving. Yet shall the end be so glorious that angels durst not hope for so great a one till they had seen it.

II. You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins. Till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers do in gold and kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.

Image: Samuel Palmer, "Eventide"