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"Now angels have size. We could walk beneath these things onthe green-covered world. Again, listen, if you will, in yourimagination, to the anthems of praise that rose to heaven; listen if you will tothe joy of God, perceiving all this through His own Intellect andthrough the choruses and tales and prayers of his angels!
"Angels began to spread out all over the earth; they began todelight in certain places; some preferred the mountains; others the deepvalleys, some the waters, some the forest of green shadow andshade.""So they became like the water spirits," I said, "or the spirits ofthe woods梐ll the spirits that men later came to worship.""Precisely. But you jump way ahead!
"My response to these very first Two Revelations was like that ofmany of my legions; as quickly as we sensed a spark of life emanatingfrom these multicelled plant organisms, we also began to sense thedeath of that spark, as one organism devoured another, or overran itand took its food from it; indeed we saw multiplicity and destruction!
"What had been mere change before梕xchange of energy andmatter梟ow took on a new dimension. We began to see thebeginning of the Third Revelation. Only it did not come home to us untilthe first animal organisms distinguished themselves from plants.
"As we watched their sharp, determined movement, with theirseemingly greater variety of choices, we sensed that the spark of lifethey evinced was indeed very similar to the life inside ourselves. Andwhat was happening to these creatures? To these tiny animals and toplants?
'They died, that's what was happening. They were born, livedand died, and began to decay. And that was the Third Revelation ofEvolution: Death and Decay."Memnoch's face became the darkest I'd ever seen it. It retainedthe innocence, and the wonder, but it was clouded with somethingterrible that seemed a mixture of fear and disappointment; maybe itwas only the naive wonder that perceives a horrible conclusion.
"The Third Revelation was Death and Decay," I said. "And youfound yourself repelled by it.""Not repelled! I just assumed it had to be a mistake! I wentsoaring to heaven! 'Look,' I said to God, 'these tiny things can cease tolive, the spark can go out梐s it could never go out of You or us, andthen what is left behind them in matter rots.' I wasn't the only angelwho went flying into the face of God with this great cry.
"But I think my anthems of wonder were more colored by suspicionand fear. Fear had been born in my heart. I didn't know it, but ithad come to me with the perception of decay and death; and theperception felt punitive to my mind."He looked at me. "Remember, we are angels. Until this time,there had been nothing punitive to our minds; nothing that madesuffering in our thoughts! You grasp? And I suffered; and fear was atiny component of it.""And what did God say?""What do you think He said?""That it was all part of the plan.""Exactly. 'Watch. Watch, and look, and you will see that essentiallynothing new is happening; there is the same interchange of energyand matter.'""But what about the spark?" I cried.
" 'You are living creatures,' said God. 'It is a credit to your fineintellect that you perceive such a thing. Now watch. More is tocome.'""But suffering, the punitive quality. ...""It was all resolved in a Great Discussion. Discussion with Godinvolves not only coherent words but immense love of God, the lightyou saw, surrounding and permeating us all. What God gave us wasreassurance, and perhaps the reassurance that this inkling of sufferingin me required梩hat there was Nothing To Fear.""I see.""Now comes the Fourth Revelation, and remember my organizationof these revelations is arbitrary. I cannot take you through theminutiae, as I've said. The Fourth Revelation I call the Revelation ofColor, and it began with flowering plants. The creation of flowers;the introduction of an entirely more extravagant and visibly beautifulmeans of mating between organisms. Now understand mating hadalways taken place. Even in the one-celled animals there had been amating.
"But flowers! Flowers introduced in profusion colors which hadnever been before in nature, except in the rainbow! Colors we hadknown in Heaven and thought to be purely celestial and now we sawthey were not purely celestial but could develop in this great laboratorycalled earth for natural reasons.
"Let me say at this time that spectacular colors were also developingin sea creatures, in fishes in warm waters. But the flowers struckme in particular as exquisitely beautiful, and when it became obviousthat the species would be numberless, that the patterns of petalsshould be endless, our anthems again rose to Heaven in such musicthat everything before seemed lesser, or not so deep.
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