be brought now and then face to face with God Himself, and see what
poor, little, contemptible atoms we are at best, compared with Him who
made heaven and earth?--to see how well God and God's world have gone on
for thousands of years without our help;--how well they will go on after
we are dead and gone?

Face to face with God! And how far shall we have to go to find ourselves
face to face with God? Not very far, according to St Paul. God, he
says, is "not far from every one of us; for in Him we live, and move, and
have our being."

In God, in the ever blessed Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--we, and
not we only, but every living thing--each flower, each insect--lives, and
moves, and has its being. So it is--strange as it may seem, and we
cannot make it otherwise. You fancy God far off--somewhere in the skies,
beyond suns and stars. Know that the heavens, and the heaven of heavens,
cannot contain Him. Rather, in the very deepest sense, He contains them.
In God, suns and stars, and all the host of heaven, live, and move, and
have their being; and if God destroyed them all at this very moment, and
the whole universe became nothing once more, as it was nothing at first,
still God would remain, neither greater nor less, neither stronger nor
weaker, neither richer nor poorer, than He was before. For He is the
self-existent I Am; who needs nought save Himself, and who needs nought
save to assert Himself in His Word, Jesus Christ our Lord, and say "I
Am," in order to create all things and beings, save Himself. He is the
infinite; whom nothing, however huge, and vast, or strong, can
comprehend--that is, take in and limit. He takes in and limits all
things; giving to each thing, form according to its own kind, and life
and growth according to its own law; appointing to all (as says St Paul)
their times, and the bounds of their habitation; that if they be rational
creatures, as we are, they may feel after the Lord and find Him; and if
they be irrational creatures, like the animals and the plants, mountains
and streams, clouds and tempests, sun and stars, they may serve God's
gracious purposes in the economy of His world.

Therefore, everything which you see, is, as it were, a thought of God's,
an action of God's; a message to you from God. Therefore you can look at
nothing in the earth without seeing God Himself at work thereon. As our
Lord said, "My Father worketh hitherto, an