new intimacy with the fortune which waits on all. It is no putting out
legs, but a putting down roots to take possession of the earth and the
nether heavens, while we fill the upper sky with climbing shoots.
Intelligence is at one with the system, able to entertain it as a unit,
to refer every particle, dark as a particle, to its shining place in the
transparent whole. How can I afford to drop my errand, to go wonder
after the fore-world, after Plato, Washington, or Paul? These are men
who never dropped their errands to go wonder after the Maker himself.
They found God in the thing lying nearest to be done. As right action in
the remotest corner is a world-victory, so right thought applied to the
lowest circumstance is cosmic thought. In the fortune of the hour we
have a home beyond the fortune of the hour. The least circle of order
now organized and established in our lives is not a poor house frozen to
the ground, but a ship able to outride the currents of time, a charmed
circle of security which will serve us still in every following world.
Our future is to be found, not in multiplication of examples, but in
deeper sympathy with all we have superficially known.

We shall never rightly celebrate the stillness and sweetness of truth in
an open mind. Clear perception is refreshing as sleep. It is a sleep
from blunder, care, and sin. In every thought we are lifted to sit with
the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the
worlds are borne. With insight we work freely, for every result is
secure; we rest, for every stream will bear us to the sea. Peace is joy
beyond the perturbation of joy, is entertainment of Omnipotence in the
breast.

A filial relation to the universe is well expressed, not in speech, but
in the attitudes of her children, in their balance, tranquillity,
directness, their firm and quiet grasp, look, step, tone. Confidence and