Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea."

Granting that the river's merging in the sea suggests the close
of life as we know it here, must we also grant that the
natural-mystic must give way to a partial, if not an absolute,
tendency to pessimism? That a natural-mystic should be a pessimist
would seem to be an anomaly. For he holds that he can hold
living communion with the Real; and such communion would
carry with it, surely, a strong hope, if not a conviction, that
change in material form cannot affect the inner being, call it the
spiritual essence, of which that form is a particular
manifestation. Deny that nature has a soul and optimism
becomes a ghastly mockery. Believe that nature and man are
linked together as kindred forms of spiritual existence, and then,
though there will not indeed be formal proof of immortality,
there will be intuitive trust in the future. What the implications
of such a trust may be is for the various philosophies and
theologies to determine; but taken at its lowest value, it would
secure a man from pessimism.

In the light of these general observations, let us consider the
particular case now presented. The river is merged in the sea--it
is absorbed--its existence as a river is terminated. But the
"substance" of its being remains; diffused in a vaster whole, but
not lost. What is this vaster whole? If we regard it as an
Absolute, there may perchance be ground for pessimism. If,
with certain scientists, we stop short at the conservation of
energy, there is nothing ahead but a blank. But if we hold to the
conservation of values, as at least a parallel to this conservation