The world and my being, its life and mine, were one. The microcosm and macrocosm were at length atoned, at length in harmony. I lived in everything; everything entered and lived in me.

In this rhapsodic, mystical language MacDonald describes a moment of reconciliation between the self (the “microcosm”) and the larger created order (the “macrocosm”). The passage suggests an experience in which alienation dissolves: the speaker no longer feels separate from the world but participates in it, receiving it inwardly while also “living in” it. The word “atoned” carries theological resonance—MacDonald often treats atonement not merely as legal pardon but as restored unity and harmony. Read this way, the quote expresses a sacramental vision of nature and personhood: true life is relational, permeable, and healed when the boundaries between self, world, and ultimately God’s presence in creation are felt as concord rather than conflict.