"So incomparable," he said in conclusion, "is the home which God has
given us. All that He--the One--has created is penetrated with His own
essence, and bears witness to His Goodness. He who knows how to find Him
sees Him everywhere, and lives at every instant in the enjoyment of His
glory. Seek Him, and when ye have found Him fall down and sing praises
before Him. But praise the Highest, not only in gratitude for the
splendor of that which he has created, but for having given us the
capacity for delight in his work. Ascend the mountain peaks and look on
the distant country, worship when the sunset glows with rubies, and the
dawn with roses, go out in the nighttime, and look at the stars as they
travel in eternal, unerring, immeasurable, and endless circles on silver
barks through the blue vault of heaven, stand by the cradle of the child,
by the buds of the flowers, and see how the mother bends over the one,
and the bright dew-drops fall on the other. But would you know where the
stream of divine goodness is most freely poured out, where the grace of
the Creator bestows the richest gifts, and where His holiest altars are
prepared? In your own heart; so long as it is pure and full of love.
In such a heart, nature is reflected as in a magic mirror, on whose
surface the Beautiful shines in three-fold beauty. There the eye can
reach far away over stream, and meadow, and hill, and take in the whole
circle of the earth; there the morning and evening-red shine, not like
roses and rubies, but like the very cheeks of the Goddess of Beauty;
there the stars circle on, not in silence, but with the mighty voices of
the pure eternal harmonies of heaven; there the child smiles like an
infant-god, and the bud unfolds to magic flowers; finally, there
thankfulness grows broader and devotion grows deeper, and we throw
ourselves into the arms of a God, who--as I imagine his glory--is a God
to whom the sublime nine great Gods pray as miserable and helpless
suppliants."