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The Firmament of Spiritual Thought.
45

God is the Divine dictate to the heart. It is as silent as the sunbeam that commands verdure from the earth, bids the flower mantle itself in red or blue or gold, and says to the spreading branches of the tree, "Be laden with fruit." When, then, the earth is in a condition to receive and respond to the solar rays, it may be said to hear the commands of its golden monitor, the sun—to listen to his voice.

A poet, tracing the departure of winter, as winter is in more frozen climes than this, thus wrote:

Spring came at last, with her vernal train
Of balmy breezes and rainbow showers;
And the sun upsprung in the sky again,
And looked upon earth which so long had lain
Denuded of verdure and flowers;
And he said, O earth! be clothed once more—
O flowers! your bridal colors don,
And lo, as he spake, from shore to shore,
The earth was mantled in robes of green,
And blossoms of every hue were seen,
Called forth by the voice of the sun.

The poets see these things in clearer light than do the theologians. It is because they frequently use the figures of the Bible. The voice of the sun that bids the earth rejoice they know to be a very silent one. It consists of solar power working in realms ready to respond to its voiceful influence.

So when the heart is open to Divine influences, they silently steal in and warm it up to a livelier