New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-03-19

the bright moonlight nights. In this Va
At least one feeling that scattered an
banished my thoughts-that was fear; 70,
let anybody try to 60 over the mountai,
the whole night alone, uncertain Of tn
way; where the eye, unnaturally excited
sees distant figures that it can not dis
tinguish; where tho eaf, with morbid in
tensity, hears sounds without knowinl
whence they come; where the foot sud
denly stumbles, either over root tina
breaks through the rock. or over slipper,
path moistened by the sprinkling of th
waterfall, and at the same time having i,
the hearts diconsolate waste no remem
brance with which one can warm oneself
no hope to which one may cling; let any
one try this, and he will feel within ans
without the cold horror of the night. Til,
first fear of the human heart is that o
being God-forsaken; yet life banishes it
and people who are indeed made in thu
image of God console us in our lone
illness. But when their consolation AND
their love again forsake us, we feel What
it is to be forsaken both by God and man
and nature, with her dumb look, frightens
rather than consoles us. Yes, even when
We place our foot firmly upon the solid
rocks, they seem to culver like the spray
of the sea from which they once arose
and when the eye longs for light, and the
moon breaks forth from behind the fiji
trees, and draws their sharp points on the
bright rocky wall opposite. it appears to
Us like the dead finger of q clock that was
once wound up, and will some time cease
to strike.
Even among the stars and in the wide
canopy of Heaven nowhere is stopping
place for the soul that trembles and feels
itself alone and forsaken. Only one
thought brings Us sometimes comfort
the stiffness. the order, the vastness, the
inevitableness Of nature. Here, where
the waterfall has robed the grey stone on
both sides with dark green moss, the
eyes see suddenly in the cool shade q
blue forget-me-not. It is one Of millions
of sisters, that now blossom upon all the
meadows of the earth, and have go bios
somed since the first morning of creation
scattered the whole riches of its mex
haustibleness over the earth. Every
vein in its leaves, every stamen in its
calyx, every fibre in it's roots is num-
bered, and no power of the earth can in
crease or diminish them. When We
sharpen our dim eyes, and with super
human power throw deep glance into
the secrets of nature, when the micro
scope opens to US the still workshop of
the seeds, the buds and the blossoms,
then We see anew in the finest webs and
cells of the reproduced form, and in the
6bres, the eternal unchanseable-
ness Of natures plan. Could we press
still deeper, everywhere the same FORM
world would meet our eye, and as in
the sight would lose itself in
he infinite. Such an infnity lies buried
IN this little flower! And if we look up
70 the heavens, there again We see the same
eternal order, moons revolving around
planets, planets around suns, and suns
Iround new suns; and to the quickened eye
wen the distant nebulous star becomes a
lew, beautiful world. Think, then, how
'onder majestic stars revolve, SO that the
easons change in order that the seeds of
his forget-me-not may fall again and
gain, its cells open, Its leaves burst forth
nd its blossoms adorn the carpet of The |
meadow. Look upon the insect that rocks |
Itself in the blue calix of the flowers, and |
whose awakening to life, whose enjoyment |
f existence, whose living breath is q |
more wonderful than the
exture of the flowers or the dead me-
hanism Of the heavenly bodies; feel that
ou, too, belong to this eternal welt, and |
GU may take comfort with these ever
asting creatures that revolve with you,
nd that die with you. But is this All |
nth its smallest and it's greatest, its
'isdom and its power. with the marvels
+ its existence and tho existence of it's
this the work OF Being be-
ore whom your soul does not shrink, but
a whose presence you fall down, feeling
our weakness and nothingnt IS, and be-
're whom you rise, feeling His love and
,ercy? Do you really reel that some
hing lives within you more infinite, more
ternal than the cells of the flowers, the
pheres Of the planets and toe lite of the
'sects2 Do you perceive around your
slf, as around shadow, the radiance
the eternal that encircles Won with
ght7 Do You feel within you, and under
on, and over you the omnipreseuce of
ae real, in which your seeming becomes
eing, your trouble rest your isolation
niversality; then you know to whom you
III in the dark night Of life, Creator
i'd Father, Thy will be done on earth AS
Is in heaven; as upoa earth, so also in
g." Then all becomes clear in you and
bout you; the morning dawn with it's
I'D fogs vanishes, and new warmth
reams through trembling nature. You
we found . hand which you will never
: 60, which holds you when the noun ,
ins tremble and moons become extinct. ,
'herever you are you are with HIM and ,
Q is with you. He is the Ever-near. His
the world with it's flowers and its thorns.