The Heavenly Father | Page 5

at first a sort of worship to these lofty manifestations of his own nature; but logic, inexorable logic, forces him soon to dismiss the divine to the region of chimeras. These rays are extinguished together with their luminous centre; the soul loses the secret of its destinies, and, in the measureless grief which possesses it, it proclaims at length that all is vanity. We shall have, in the sequel, to be witnesses together of this sorrowful spectacle.
Such is the basis of our idea of God: we must now discover its summit. Before the thought of this Sovereign Being, by whose Will are all things, and who is without cause and without beginning, our soul is overwhelmed. We are so feeble! the thought of absolute power crushes us. Creatures of a day, how should we understand the Eternal? Frail as we are, and evil, we tremble at the idea of holiness. But milder accents, as you know, have been heard upon the earth: This Sovereign God--He loves us. In proportion as this idea gains possession of our understanding, in the same proportion our soul has glimpses of the paths of peace. He loves us, and we take courage. He hears us, and prayer rises to Him with the hope of being heard. He governs all, and we confide in His Providence. When your gaze is directed towards the depths of the sky, does it never happen to you to remain in a manner terrified, as you contemplate those worlds which without end are added to other worlds? As you fix your thoughts upon the immeasurable abysses of the firmament,--as you say to yourselves that how far soever you put back the boundary of the skies, if the universe ended there, then the universe, with its suns and its groups of stars, would still be but a solitary lamp, shining as a point in the midst of the limitless darkness,--have you never experienced a sort of mysterious fright and giddiness? At such a time turn your eyes upon nearer objects. He who has made the heavens with their immensity, is He who makes the corn to spring forth for your sustenance, who clothes the fields with the flowers which rejoice your sight, who gives you the fresh breath of morning, and the calm of a lovely evening: it is He, without whose permission nothing occurs, who watches over you and over those you love. Possess yourselves thoroughly with this thought of love, then lift once more your eyes to the sky, and from every star, and from the worlds which are lost in the furthest depths of space, shall fall upon your brow, no longer clouded, a ray of love and of peace. Then with a feeling of sweet affiance you will adopt as your own those words of an ancient prophet: "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy Presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me:"[3] then you will understand those grand and sweet words of Saint Augustine, some of the most beautiful that ever fell from the lips of a man: "Are you afraid of God? Run to His arms!"
Thus our idea of God is completed,--the idea of Him whom, in a feeling of filial confidence, we name the Father, and whom we call the Heavenly Father, while we adore that absolute holiness, of which the pure brightness of the firmament is for us the visible and magnificent symbol. Goodness is the secret of the universe; goodness it is which has directed power, and placed wisdom at its service.
My object is not to teach this idea, but to defend it: it is not, I say, to teach it, for we all possess it. There is no one here who has not received his portion of the sacred deposit. This sacred idea may be veiled by our sorrows, perverted by our errors, obscured by our faults; but, however thick be the layer of ashes heaped together in the depth of our souls--look closely: the sacred spark is not extinguished, and a favorable breath may still rekindle the flame.
We have considered the essential elements of which our idea of God is composed. And whence comes this idea? What is its historical origin? I do not ask what is the historical origin of religion, for religion does not take its rise in history; it is met with everywhere and always in humanity. Those who deny this are compelled to "search in the darkness for some obscure example known only to themselves, as