The customs of Heaven ought
surely to be more sacred in our eyes than its anomalies; the dear
old ways, of which the Most High is never tired, than the strange
things which he does not love well enough ever to repeat. And he
who will but discern beneath the sun, as he rises any morning,
the supporting finger of the Almighty, may recover the sweet and
reverent surprise with which Adam gazed on the first dawn in
Paradise. It is no outward change, no shifting in time or place;
but only the loving meditation of the pure in heart, that can
reawaken the Eternal from the sleep within our souls: that can
render him a reality again, and reassert for him once more his
ancient name of 'the Living God.'"[319]
[319] James Martineau: end of the sermon "Help Thou Mine
Unbelief," in Endeavours after a Christian Life, 2d series.
Compare with this page the extract from Voysey on p. 270, above,
and those from Pascal and Madame Guyon on p. 281.
When we see all things in God, and refer all things to him, we
read in common matters superior expressions of meaning. The
deadness with which custom invests the familiar vanishes, and
existence as a whole appears transfigured.
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