Water spirit

“ Waters, in the language of correspondences, signify truths. You know the Lord said to the Samaritan woman, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Water symbolizes there and every where that Divine truth which alone makes men wise unto salvation. So when the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters in the mind of any one, it is when those truths taught in childhood, and stored up well within the memory, are awakened, be it to ever so small a degree, by the mercy of the Lord. ”

“ For here the wind not only has free scope, but it also finds another element, fluid but incompressible, to obey its impulse and follow in the course which it takes. If the WIND be like a wild spirit, the WATER is a mighty, irresistible body, endowed with motion by the other, and capable of any work, from the drowning of a sea-gull to the wrecking of a stately ship. ”

“ And why did He call the grace of the Spirit water? Because by water all things subsist; because water brings forth grass and living things; because the water of the showers comes down from heaven; because it comes down one in form, but works in many forms. For one fountain watereth the whole of Paradise, and one and the same rain comes down upon all the world, yet it becomes white in the lily, and red in the rose, and purple in violets and hyacinths, and different and varied in each several kind: so it is one in the palm-tree, and another in the vine, and all in all things ”

“ As the lake which empties itself into the ocean is replenished when the water that left it has been evaporated and returns to it as rain, to flow again ceaselessly toward the sea, so the Spirit of Love is eternally born of the Father, day by day, hour by hour, endlessly flowing into the solar universe to redeem us from the world of matter which enmeshes us in its death grip. ”

“ This was a watering place, perhaps a never-ceasing watering place—and to his desert-born-and-bred race all water was a spirit gift never to be taken for granted. ”

“ The reason is, that, as this water is the cause of life and growth to the creation, animal and vegetable, so, the Spirit is the alone source of spiritual life and growth. The primeval type of that blessed Agent was the river that watered the Garden of Eden, and thence flowing, was parted into four streams to water the earth. ”

“ The Spirit dwelling and working in believers is as a fountain of living running water, out of which plentiful streams flow, cooling and cleansing as water, mollifying and moistening as water, making them fruitful, and others joyful ”

“ The water is the eldest daughter of the creation, the element upon which the Spirit of God did first move, the element which God commanded to bring forth living creatures abundantly; and without which, those that inhabit the land, even all creatures that have breath in their nostrils, must suddenly return to putrefaction. ”

“ Lofty natural mounds rose amidst the rest, with the same lovely and sweeping outline, showing everywhere the plastic power of water, — water, mother of beauty, which, by its sweet and eager flow, had left such lineaments as human genius never dreamt of. ”

“ And the influence of a lake, in calming and clearing the turbid water, may be compared to the effect of reason in more mature life, when the tranquil, deep, cool, and unimpassioned mind is freed from its fever, its troubles, bubbles, noise, and foam. And, above all, the sources of a river—which may be considered as belonging to the atmosphere—and its termination in the ocean, may be regarded as imaging the divine origin of the human mind, and its being ultimately returned to, and lost in, the infinite and eternal Intelligence from which it originally sprang. ”

“ Aqua vini is what he calls it, but some name it, he says, aqua vitæ, or water which preserves itself always, and golden water. It is well called water of life, he says, because it strengthens the body and prolongs life. ”

“ There is something about clear, pure water, whether it is seen in the placid lake or the gushing, mountain torrent, that inspires and lifts a person above the toils and cares of this [71] life, where he is able to breathe a pure and holy atmosphere. ”

“ The world one incarnate expectation, blistering, parched, like the tongue of Dives. The heavenly drop of water for which you long, squandered on the hot air, moist with a vanguard of vapour, so that the breath you draw is even as the breath you exhale. ”

“ The rain-water comes down from heaven as water, and nothing but water. Rain-water is the only pure water, after all. How would you save that for the poor people who have none? There; run away and hunt rabbits on the moor: but look, meanwhile, how you would save some of this beautiful and precious water which is roaring away into the sea. ”

“ A beautiful symbol of a great reality. Excepting the air we breathe, there is no element so widely diffused, nor so essential to life, as water. Imagine a great city, a whole district, a ship’s crew without water. [1] 1. Water revives. How the traveller dying from thirst begins to revive the instant water touches his lips; so the salvation of the gospel imparts new life to the soul ”

“ Toastmaster and Gentlemen, I speak to-night of water. What visions does that word conjure up! What delectable thoughts does it bring to the contemplative mind. Water, I maintain, is the most beneficent, the most benign and the most beautiful of all the elements with which a generous Creator has endowed this mundane sphere. ”

“ The cool liquid green will run through your veins, and the voice of the cataract will be the expression of your own heart. You will fall as the bright waters fall, rushing down into your new world with no hesitation and with no dismay; and you will rise again as the spray rises, bright, beautiful, and pure. Then you will flow away in your course to the uncompassed, distant, and eternal ocean. ”

“ To men in such circumstances the spirits of the waters are beneficent beings, the dispensers of life and fertility, whether their blessings descend as rain from heaven or well up as springs of bubbling water in the parched desert. ”

“ This Soul is compared unto water, and it is a right true water, but not so that it wets as other water doth, but it is a Celestial water, dry, found in a Metallick Liquorish substance; it is a Soulish water, which loves all Spirits, and unites them with their Bodies, conducting them to a compleat Life ”

“ They noticed, too, that water was the first necessity of men and beasts and plants, and that dead men and things stiffened and withered as though the water was gone out of them; and so they worshipped water as the principle of life, and the water-god was the second-born. ”

“ It is impossible not to feel that the manifold great ocean-waters of life, that the diversely blowing winds of God’s Spirit are here, somehow, expected to flow and breathe in a little shortcut, single channel, through a tiny pipe ”

“ Resting here, and gazing down into it, thoughts and dreams come flowing as the water flows. Thoughts without words, mobile like the stream, nothing compact that can be grasped and stayed: dreams that slip silently as water slips through the fingers. ”

“ A spring of water has always something about it which gives rise to holy feelings. From the dark earth there wells up a pellucid fluid, which in its apparent tranquil joyousness gives gladness to all around. The velvet mosses, the sword-like grasses, and the feathery ferns, grow with more of that light and vigorous nature which indicates a fulness of life, within the charmed influence of a spring of water, than they do elsewhere. ”

“ Such are some of the facts connected with this important fluid—water. So common and abundant is it in nature, that we are apt to overlook its value; but we need only be deprived of it for a season, when we shall set a due estimate upon its importance. Pure and sparkling to the eye, bland and refreshing to the taste, whether it bubbles up from mother earth, gurgles in rills, flows along in streams and rivers, or spreads out in lakes and oceans, it every where proves a blessing,—and ought to be universally regarded as one of the most inestimable gifts of Providence to man. ”

“ Deeply suggestive also is the saying which, if not rightly attributed to him, is at least characteristic of his school—"All things are full of the gods." We may therefore infer that the physical properties of water are such as to suggest the ideas which have culminated in modern animism. That is to say, water is capable of producing intellectual and spiritual, as well as what are termed physical effects. ”

“ The resounding impact of water on rocks, the clouds of water-smoke which rise high in the air, and the river below churned into a whirling cream of eddy and surge and backwater, unite in a composite effect, at once magnificent and bewildering. ”

“ Certainly those who have the water-sense, yet are required by circumstances to earn their living as landsmen, have all dreamed these dreams. In many people the sight of water responds to some fundamental need of the mind. ”

“ God has so made it that as much water is incessantly rising into the air from the sea as is being poured into it. But how is it, then, that the streams and rivers do not dry up ? Whence comes that volume of water which they are continuously pouring into the sea? The mists and clouds which rise from the sea are driven over the land by the wind, and fall back on the earth in the form of either dew, fog, rain or snow. ”

“ How communicative also is water, a necessary and excellent creature! How active is it in a river, to nourish the living creatures engendered in its womb! refresheth every shore it runs by; promotes the propagation of fruits for the nourishment, and bestows a verdure upon the ground, for the delight of man; and where it cannot reach the higher ground in its substance, it doth by its vapors, mounted up and concocted by the sun, and gently distilled upon the earth, for the opening its womb to bring forth its fruits. ”

“ I love the force of water much, but its subtlety is magic in its effects. Perfectly do I comprehend what I have heard of gazers on a river-side being tempted to drown themselves by sight of the water, and all those tales of mermaid enchantments which embody this feeling. ”

“ We have gained infinitely in comfort in our perfect water systems and lavish water of to-day, but we have lost the gratification of the senses which came from the sight and sound of freshly drawn or running water. ”

“ But they who are on the water enjoy a longer and brighter twilight than they who are on the land, for here the water, as well as the atmosphere, absorbs and reflects the light, and some of the day seems to have sunk down into the waves. ”

“ It seems as if there were a spirit moving not only upon the waters, but in the waters; as if the great deep were a living organism, of which the ebb and flow were like the circulation of the blood in the human frame. ”

“ The manner in which the character discloses its qualities is quite analogous to the way in which those of every material body in unconscious nature are disclosed. Water remains water with its intrinsic qualities, whether as a still lake it reflects its banks, or leaps in foam from the cliffs, or, artificially confined, spouts in a long jet into the air. ”

“ In a suction green as an uncut emerald, a volume of water, twenty fathoms deep, is hurled over a precipice 160 feet high. One hundred million tons of water pass over every hour, with a roar that can be heard ten miles away, and a reverberation that shakes the very earth itself, into the seething cauldron below, shrouded in an eternal mist:—"There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard." ”

“ He shall not alone receive the streams from "the Fountain of living water," which is God Himself, but he shall in himself be a fountain of perennial water, from which streams shall flow, not only into his own inward being, but outwardly upon all around him—streams of light, of charity, of consolation, and of saving health ”

“ If one pauses to listen, he will hear a gurgling of running water down in the leviathan's inside, not unlike that made when its living namesake pours a draught of water from his trunk down into his throat. Here, as everywhere else in active spring formations, the sound of running water can be heard beneath the surface incrustation. ”

“ Running water has a charm all its own; it proffers companionship of which one never tires; it adapts itself to moods; it is the guardian of secrets. It has cool draughts for the thirsty soul as well as for drooping flowers; and they who wander in the garden of God with listening ears learn of its many voices.
When the strain of a working day has left me weary, perhaps troubled and perplexed, I find my way to the river. I step into a boat and pull up stream until the exertion has refreshed me ”

“ Water is beautiful, but not like air:
See, where the solid azure waters lie
Made as of thickened air, and down below,
The fern-ranks like a forest spread themselves
As though each pore could feel the element;
Where the quick glancing serpent winds his way,
Float with me there, Pauline!—but not like air. ”

“ And again, as the blood, after circulating through the body in an infinite number of life-giving streams, returns to the heart once more on its journey, so the thousand streams which wander over the plains find their way back to the heart of the mountains, for the water is brought there in the form of vapour and clouds by the winds.
When we build water-towers, and make reservoirs on high ground to give pressure to the water in our pipes, and make it circulate everywhere,—even to the tops of our houses,—we are only taking a hint from Nature. ”

“ Cool, elusive, fluctuating, hard to fix and strangely fair
Are the difficult, grievous, grieving souls which born of Water are—
Ours to-day, not ours to-morrow; never ours to hold and wear. [18]
Vainly love and passion battle ’gainst their unresisting chill,
Like the oar-stroke in the water which the drops make haste to fill,
The impression melts and wavers, the cool surface fronts us still. ”