The continents are
transformed into the seas that encircle them; the seas rise into the
skies that overarch them; the skies mingle with the earth, and send
back from the uplifted faces of flowers greetings to the stars they
have deserted. Mountains rise and sink in the sublime rhythm to which
the movement of the universe is set; that song without words still
audible in the sacred hour when the morning stars announce the day, and
the birds match their tiny melodies with the universal harmony.
In the unbroken vision of the centuries all things are plastic and in
motion; a divine energy surges through all; substantial for a moment
here as a rock, fragile and vanishing there as a flower; but everywhere
the same, and always sweeping onward through its illimitable channel to
its appointed end. It is this vital tide on which the universe gleams
and floats like a mirage of immutability; never the same for a single
moment to the soul that contemplates it: a new creation each hour and
to every eye that rests upon it. No dead mechanism moves the stars, or
lifts the tides, or calls the flowers from their sleep; truly this is
the garment of Deity, and here is the awful splendour of the Perpetual
Presence. It is the old story of the Greek Proteus translated into
universal speech.
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