December 18

We trust in the living God. — 1 Tim 4:10

Thy secret judgment’s depths profound
Still sings the silent night;
The day, upon his golden round,
Thy pity infinite.

I. WILLIAMS. Tr. from Latin.

Now that I have no longer any sense for the transitory and perishable, the universe appears before my eyes under a transformed aspect. The dead, heavy mass which did but stop up space has vanished, and in its place there flows onward, with the rushing music of mighty waves, an eternal stream of life, and power, and action, which issues from the original source of all life,—from Thy life, O Infinite One! for all life is Thy life, and only the religious eye penetrates to the realm of true Beauty.
—J. G. FICHTE.

What is Nature? Art thou not the “Living Garment” of God? O Heavens, is it, in very deed, He then that ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me? Sweeter than dayspring to the shipwrecked in Nova Zembla; ah! like the mother’s voice to her little child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults; like soft streamings of celestial music to my too exasperated heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel-house with spectres; but godlike, and my Father’s.
—T. CARLYLE.