The long dying is over, and the waking has begun. Vane and Lona walk in a spring twilight where nothing casts a shadow and every heather-bush glows with its own light, “as fire from the bush Moses saw in the desert.” The microcosm and macrocosm are “at length atoned, at length in harmony”: to know a thing is now to know its life and his own at once, “because Another is what he is.” They pass the once-fearful hollow, now a pellucid lake with the whole horrid brood of monsters lying motionless at its bottom — not dead, but stilled. The auroral wind trumpets the sun, “a coal from the altar of the Father’s never-ending sacrifice,” and every flower stretches out its neck, expectant of something greater than the light, “coming, is coming.” The dry channels run again with living water that shouts in its gladness; the desert blossoms as the rose. This is resurrection-morning, and the road runs one direction only — home to the Father.
The Point of ReferenceVane says the strange new thing himself, almost as a creed: to know anything at all is “to know that we are all what we are, because Another is what he is.” That is not poetry only; it is the whole foundation of this series stated in MacDonald’s own words. Every created thing has identity on loan — the heather is heather, the river is river — because there is One who does not borrow His being from anything, who simply is. When God names Himself to Moses out of the burning bush, He gives no description, only sheer existence: “I AM WHO I AM.” All logic, all identity, all the joyful interchange of light Vane now sees, rests on that unborrowed, unchanging Self. We fix our reference there.
Exodus 3:14 · Greek (LXX)
καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς Μωυσῆν Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν· καὶ εἶπεν Οὕτως ἐρεῖς τοῖς υἱοῖς Ισραηλ Ὁ ὢν ἀπέσταλκέν με πρὸς ὑμᾶς.
Exodus 3:14 · ESV
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
The chapter’s landscape is lifted almost word for word from the prophets. “The desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose” is Isaiah; the dry channels that “ran and flashed and foamed with living water” are the river of the new creation. MacDonald is not inventing his resurrection-morning; he is illustrating Scripture’s.
Isaiah 35:1–2 · Greek (LXX)
1Εὐφράνθητι ἔρημος διψῶσα, ἀγαλλιάσθω ἔρημος καὶ ἀνθείτω ὡς κρίνον, 2καὶ ἐξανθήσει καὶ ἀγαλλιάσεται τὰ ἔρημα τοῦ Ιορδάνου· … καὶ ὁ λαός μου ὄψεται τὴν δόξαν κυρίου καὶ τὸ ὕψος τοῦ θεοῦ.
Isaiah 35:1–2 · ESV
1The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; 2it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing… They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.
Revelation 22:1 · Greek
Καὶ ἔδειξέν μοι ποταμὸν ὕδατος ζωῆς λαμπρὸν ὡς κρύσταλλον, ἐκπορευόμενον ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἀρνίου.
Revelation 22:1 · ESV
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Peter promises “the time of restoring (ἀποκατάστασις) all things” (Acts 3:21). It is the right word for this chapter: dry channels filled, deserts forested, the cosmos breathing “heavenward her sweet-savoured smoke.” But Scripture restores the creation and gathers the redeemed; it never promises that the monsters at the bottom of the lake will themselves wake renewed. The restoration of all things is not the salvation of all persons — a distinction MacDonald’s hope is prone to blur.
Light that goes out from things — and a sun that is a coal from the altar
Vane describes a world where every blade is “perfectly visible—either by light that went out from it… or by light that went out of our eyes,” and “nothing cast a shadow; all things interchanged a little light.” It is a vision of a creation no longer merely reflecting borrowed photons but luminous in itself — matter glorified rather than abolished. The physics is not denied; it is fulfilled.
And the sun is named exactly: “a coal from the altar of the Father’s never-ending sacrifice to his children.” Our star really is a furnace pouring out life by self-spending fusion — a true picture of a giving God. MacDonald lets the real science stand as parable: the cosmos is built on costly self-gift, light at the price of burning.
The microcosm and macrocosm “at length atoned”
The whole chapter is a resolution of the ancient problem of the knower and the known. “The world and my being, its life and mine, were one… I lived in everything; everything entered and lived in me.” The gap between self and world that haunts all philosophy is here healed — not by collapsing the two into a blur, but by both meeting in a third.
Note the word Vane chooses: atoned. Reconciliation is not self-generated; it is given. To know a thing is “to know that we are all what we are, because Another is what he is.” That is the answer to skepticism the modern self cannot supply for itself: the unity of knower and known is grounded outside both, in the One who upholds each.
The monsters not dead, but stilled
The most sober line in a joyful chapter: the hideous brood lies motionless at the lake’s bottom, “but they were not dead. So long as exist men and women of unwholesome mind, that lake will still be peopled with loathsomenesses.” Evil here is not yet annihilated; it is bound, subdued, held below the crystal water. Even on resurrection-morning a real shadow-realm persists.
This is metaphysically honest. The new creation does not pretend evil never was; it overcomes it and contains it. MacDonald will not let us imagine a heaven achieved by forgetting hell. The journey home runs past the lake of monsters, in full view of them — not around it.
“Coming, is coming” — the creation on tiptoe
Every flower “straighten[s] its stalk, lift[s] up its neck… expectant: something more than the sun… is coming, is coming.” This is Paul’s ἀποκαραδοκία — the creation craning its neck in eager longing (Romans 8:19), waiting to be set free from bondage to decay.
And the longing is not vague optimism but a Person: “He is coming, is coming, and the necks of all humanity are stretched out to see him come.” The chapter ends the synopsis it began — “on our way home to the Father” — with the New Testament’s last prayer still implied: Come, Lord Jesus.
In the glorified world every growing thing shows Vane “its indwelling idea—the informing thought… which was its being.” This is identity perfected: each creature is at last fully what it is, transparent to its own true self. Glory does not dissolve identity into a haze; it makes the heather more heather, the river more river — A more purely A than the dim old world ever allowed.
Vane distinguishes two states that cannot both be the same: “life mere and pure is in itself bliss; that where being is not bliss, it is not life, but life-in-death.” The waking life and the burrowing loathsomenesses are not two flavors of one thing; they are A and not-A. The lake of monsters proves it — that which refuses life cannot also be called alive.
The chapter closes on a real question that admits no neutral answer: “When he comes, will he indeed find them watching thus?” Either the necks are stretched out for him or they are not; either one is on the road home to the Father or one is still in the lake. MacDonald presses the watching/not-watching choice and refuses to let the reader hover between.
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