with responsive joy. "Then shall the mountains and the hills break
forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field clap
their hands." One of these changes is to come to the earth. [Page
241] Amidst great noise the heaven shall flee, the earth be burned
up, and all their forces be changed to new forms. Perhaps it will
not then be visible to mortal eyes. Perhaps force will then be made
conscious, and the flowers thereafter return our love as much as
lower creatures do now. A river and tree of life may be consciously
alive, as well as give life. Poets that are nearest to God are
constantly hearing the sweet voices of responsive feeling in nature.

"For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness and a smile,
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware."

Prophets who utter God's voice of truth say, "The wilderness and
the solitary place shall be glad for holy men, and the desert shall
rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and
rejoice, even with joy and singing."

Distinguish clearly between certainty and surmise. The certainty is
that the world will pass through catastrophic changes to a perfect
world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass.
He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable,
inaudible ether is beyond our apprehension; it transmits impressions
186,000 miles a second; it is millions of times more capable and
energetic than air. What may be the bounds of its possibility none
can imagine, for law is not abrogated nor designs disregarded as
we ascend into higher realms. Law works out more beautiful designs
with more absolute certainty. Why [Page 242] should there not be a
finer universe than this, and disconnected from this world
altogether--a fit home for immortal souls? It is a necessity.

God filleth all in all, is everywhere omnipotent and wise. Why
should there be great vacuities, barren of power and its creative
outgoings? God has fixed the stars as proofs of his agency at some
points in space. But is it in points only? Science is proud of its
discovery that what men once thought to be empty space is more
intensely active than the coarser forms of matter can be. But in
the long times which are past Job glanced at earth, seas, clouds,
pillars of heaven, stars, day, night, all visible things, and then