“Life is one, and universal; its forms many and individual.  Throughout this beautiful and wonderful creation there is never-ceasing motion, without rest by night or day, ever weaving to and fro.  Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle it flies from Birth to Death, from Death to Birth; from the beginning seeks the end, and finds it not, for the seeming end is only a dim beginning of a new out-going and endeavour after the end.  As the ice upon the mountain, when the warm breath of the summer sun breathes upon it, melts, and divides into drops, each of which reflects an image of the sun; so life, in the smile of God’s love, divides itself into separate forms, each bearing in it and reflecting an image of God’s love.  Of all these forms the highest and most perfect inits god-likeness is the human soul.  The vast cathedral of Nature is full of holy scriptures, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning; but all is solitary and silent there; no bending knee, no uplifted eye, no lip adoring, praying.  Into this vast cathedral comes the human soul, seeking its Creator; and the universal silence is changed to sound, and the sound is harmonious, and has a meaning, and is comprehended and felt.  It was an ancient saying of the Persians, that the waters rush from the mountains and hurry forth into all the lands to find the Lord of the Earth; and the flame of the Fire, when it awakes, gazes no more upon the ground, but mounts heavenward to seek the Lord of Heaven; and here and there the Earth has built the great watch-towers of the mountains, and they lift their heads far up into the sky, and gaze ever upward and around, to see if the Judge of the World comes not!  Thus in Nature herself, without man, there lies a waiting, and hoping, a looking and yearning, after an unknown somewhat.  Yes; when, above there, where the mountain lifts its head over all others, that it may be alone with the clouds and storms of heaven, the lonely eagle looks forth into the gray dawn, to see if the day comes not! when, by the mountain torrent, the brooding raven listens to hear if the chamois is returning from his nightly pasture in the valley; and when the soon uprising sun calls out the spicy odors of the thousand flowers, the Alpine flowers, with heaven’s deep blue and the blush of sunset on their leaves;—­then there awakes in Nature, and the soul of man can see and comprehend it, an expectation and a longing for a future revelation of God’s majesty.  It awakens, also, when in the fulness of life, field and forest rest at noon, and through the stillness is heard only the song of the grasshopper and the hum of the bee; and when at evening the singing lark, up from the sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or in the later hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour, to walk forth in the fields of heaven.  But in the soul of man alone is this longing changed to certainty and fulfilled.  For lo! thelight of the sun and the stars shines through the air, and is nowhere visible and seen; the planets hasten with more than the speed