Now, if there be more science, more genius in the production of a violet
or a worm than is revealed by all the combined powers of science and of
art, how much admiration should we not feel at the sight of all the
splendors which God has spread broadcast in the privileged work wherein
He was pleased to reveal his own image! But a light inaccessible to the
vain demonstrations of your sciences constantly removes this mysterious
image from your gaze. As light eludes the eye which it illumines, if we
would seize and contemplate it, we must have two things: we must have a
special and a supernatural object. There must be light within you, and
it must pierce the depths wherein that image dwells.
Here there is no question of the light which shines to show us the
things of the natural world by which we are surrounded. Nor is it a
question of the intellectual light sometimes visible to scholars. I
speak of that light which is hidden from those very scholars because
their eyes could not bear its lustre, a transluminous light which fills
the soul with beatific visions, and of which it is said that God wraps
it about Him as a mantle.
Now, three worlds, of the nature of which man partakes, are offered for
our contemplation. These three worlds are: The _natural_, the
_intellectual_, and the _supernatural_.
Three sorts of vision have been given man to initiate him into these
three worlds. These different forms of vision are: _Direct, inward_ and
_higher_.
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