ing swathe of rain, His promises of
everlasting love. "In them hath He set a _tabernacle_ for the sun;"
whose burning ball, which, without the firmament, would be seen but as
an intolerable and scorching circle in the blackness of vacuity, is by
that firmament surrounded with gorgeous service, and tempered by
mediatorial ministries: by the firmament of clouds the temple is
built, for his presence to fill with light at noon; by the firmament
of clouds the purple veil is closed at evening, round the sanctuary of
his rest; by the mists of the firmament his implacable light is
divided, and its separated fierceness appeased into the soft blue that
fills the depth of distance with its bloom, and the flush with which
the mountains burn, as they drink the overflowing of the dayspring.
And in this tabernacling of the unendurable sun with men, through the
shadows of the firmament, God would seem to set forth the stooping of
His own Majesty to men, upon the throne of the firmament. As the
Creator of all the worlds, and the Inhabiter of eternity, we cannot
behold Him; but as the Judge of the earth and the Preserver of men,
those heavens are indeed His dwelling-place: "Swear not, neither by
heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His
footstool!" And all those passings to and fro of fruitful showers and
grateful shade, and all those visions of silver palaces built about
the horizon, and voices of moaning winds and threatening thunders, and
glories of coloured robe and cloven ray, are but to deepen in our
hearts the acceptance, and distinctness, and dearness of the simple
words, "Our Father, which art in heaven."

SECTION IV.

ILLUSTRATIVE: STREAMS AND SEA.

27. Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature,
and without assistance and combination, water is the most wonderful.
If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty
which we have seen in clouds,--then, as the instrument by which the
earth we have contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags
chiselled into grace;--then, as in the form of snow, it robes the
mountains it has made with that transcendent light which we could not
have conceived if we had not seen;--then, as it exists in the foam of
the torrent, in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which
rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging
shore, in the broad lake and glancing river;--finally, in that which
is to