"What wonderful provision God
has made for us, spreading out the Bible into types of nature! What if every
part of your house should begin to repeat the truths which have been committed
to its symbolism? The lowest stone would say, in silence of night, “other
foundation can no man lay.” The corner stone would catch the word, “Christ is
the corner stone.” The door would add, “I am the door.” The light by your
bedside would stream up a moment to tell you, “Christ is the light of the
world.” If you gaze upon your children, they reflect from their sweetly
sleeping faces the words of Christ, “Except ye become like little children.” If
waking, you look towards your parent’s couch, from that sacred place God calls
himself your father and mother. Disturbed by the crying of your children, who
are affrighted in a dream, you rise to soothe them, and hear God saying, “ So
will I wipe away all tears from your eyes in heaven.” Returning to your bed,
you look from the window. Every star hails you, but, chiefest, “the bright and
morning Star.” By and by flaming from the east, the flood of morning bathes
your dwelling, and calls you forth to the cares of the day, and then you
remember that God is the sun, and that heaven is bright with his presence.
Drawn by hunger, you approach the table. The loaf whispers as you break it,
“Broken for you,” and the wheat of the loaf sighs, “Bruised and ground for you.’
The water that quenches your thirst says, “I am the water of life.” If you wash
your hands, you can but remember the teachings of spiritual purity. If you wash
your feet, that hath been done sacredly by Christ, as a memorial. Go forth to
your labor, and what thing can you see that hath not its message? The ground is
full of sympathy. The flowers have been printed with teachings. The trees, that
only seem to shake their leaves in sport, are framing divine sentences. The
birds tell of heaven with their love-warbling’s in the green twilight. The
sparrow is a preacher of truth. The hen clucks and broods her chickens,
unconscious that to the end of the world she is part and parcel of a revelation
of God to man. The sheep that bleat from the pastures, the hungry wolves that
blink in the forest, the serpent that glides noiselessly in the grass, the
raven that flies heavily across the field. The lily over which his shadow
passes, the plough, the sickle, the wain, the barn, the flail, the threshing
floor, all of them are consecrated priests, unrobed teachers, revelators that
see no vision themselves, but that bring to us thoughts of truth, contentment,
hope and love. All are ministers of God the whole earth doth praise him, and
show forth his glory!" Henry Ward Beecher.
Friday, January 31, 2014
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