For Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through Thy work: I will triumph in the works of Thy hands.
Ps. xcii. 4.

Consider it
(This outer world we tread on) as a harp,—
A gracious instrument on whose fair strings
We learn those airs we shall be set to play
When mortal hours are ended.
Jean Ingelow.

EVERY year has been to me a softening of the impressible nature, and a clearing of the eye in all the fields of divine goodness, quite irrespective of the hard, hot, choking work of the external world and its attacks. I feel more and more how all right spirit life is a gladness and a glory increasing; how divine goodness is speaking in all tones that reach the heart with joy or sorrow, awe or ecstasy, everywhere and in all things, if we can but hear it; how completely the spirit within can be in communion with light, independent of external circumstances; and yet how external circumstances and creation are the medium through which God speaks. And if it is indeed a speech of God, an ever present incarnation of the divine mind, then the power of reading the divine mind can only exist for those who are in accordance wih it.
Edward Thring.