ion as
they forget God, and will not see that he is about their path, and
about their bed, and spying out all their ways, they are like those
godless Scribes and Pharisees of old, who must have signs and
wonders before they would believe. So it is: the commonest things
are as wonderful, more wonderful, than the uncommon; and yet, people
will hanker after the uncommon, as if they belonged to God more
immediately than the commonest matters.

If yon trees burst out in flame; if yon hill opened, and a fountain
sprang up, how many would cry, 'How awful! How wonderful! Here is
a sign that God is near us! It is time to think about our souls
now! Perhaps the end of the world is at hand!' And all the while
they would be blind to that far more awful proof of God's presence,
that all around them, all day long, all over the world, millions of
human ears are hearing, millions of human eyes are seeing, God alone
knows how; millions of human brains are recollecting, God alone
knows how. That is not faith, my friends, to see God only in what
is strange and rare: but this is faith, to see God in what is most
common and simple; to know God's greatness not so much from
disorder, as from order; not so much from those strange sights in
which God seems (but only seems) to break his laws, as from those
common ones in which he fulfils his laws.

I know it is very difficult to believe that. It has been always
difficult; and for this reason. Our souls and minds are disorderly;
and therefore order does not look to us what it is, the likeness and
glory of God. I will explain. If God, at any moment, should create
a full-grown plant with stalk, leaves, and flowers, all perfect, all
would say, There is the hand of God! How great is God! There is,
indeed, a miracle!--Just because it would seem not to be according
to order. But the tiny seed sown in the ground, springing up into
root-leaf, stalk, rough leaf, flower, seed, which will again be sown
and spring up into leaf, flower, and seed;--in that perpetual
miracle, people see no miracle: just because it is according to
order: because it comes to pass by regular and natural laws. And
why? Because, such as we are, such we fancy God to be. And we are
all of us more or less disorderly: fanciful; changeable; fond of
doing not what we ought, but what we like; fond of showing our
power, not by keeping rules, but by breaking rules; and we fancy too
often that God is like ourselves, an