"In his stillness there was a deep awareness. He knew of the wild things cradled in the woods and fields, and of the sheep going home over the hill. He knew about the orchards, and the farmsteads where little children were dreaming under the eaves. He knew where the dead lay sleeping and where the living wept. He knew all there was to know of this little country of his birth, and he held it in the hollow of his hand. And beyond these green hills was the pulsing thunder of the workshops and the roar of cities and the strife of kings, and he knew that, too, and watched it all. And he saw good and evil, light and darkness, heaven and hell, locked in combat; he saw the smoke of the battle and smelled the reek of the blood and sweat and tears, and yet he was not afraid. For he was a Man, standing guard over his inheritance of all that lives. To him it had been given to pass through life and death to life again, and know them one; to rise to the very peak and height of agony and find himself looking into the eyes of God beneath the crown of thorns, to fall through the bottomless abyss and find himself kneeling at the feet of God pierced through with nails, to probe each way through doubting and despair and find the arms of God outstretched in love upon the cross; because he was a Man and into man has been breathed the breath of life, and life is God."
~Elizabeth Goudge, The Castle on the Hill
