To take a single instance: Wandering in his father's library, a boy comes upon a book which he begins to read; and suddenly the conviction comes to him that he ought not to go on. The book is full of interest; perhaps in later years he may return to it and find its thoughts most helpful. And yet it may be that this book, which at a later time might prove a sacrament of good, may be for him now nothing but a sacrament of evil, since his mind is not ready to understand its teaching. In the world without us there are some things so constantly associated with thoughts of goodness [p.79] and beauty that they seem almost naturally God's sacraments. Such are the flowers, which constantly call to our minds thoughts of joy and kindness; the sunlight, which cheers and invigorates; and drives away the disease that is the symbol of wrongdoing; the light, whose essence is so pure that it has become an image of the Divine nature. These are among nature's sacraments, and in the life of man we have, above all, the sacrament of the family, which at its best is an image of the love of the All-highest, and a foretaste of His Kingdom among men, of the city which is to be, in which all are members of one another, living to serve each other. It may comfort us to think that the devil's sacraments are not so all-pervading; for night, which we think of as the cloak of evil, may itself be to the devout soul a symbol of the mysterious peace of God. One thinks of those wonderful lines of Vaughan: /Dear Night! the world's defeat;/ /The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb;/ /The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat/ /Which none disturb!/ /Christ's progress, and His prayer-time;/ /The hours to which high Heaven doth climb./ /God's silent, searching flight;/ /When my Lord's head is fill'd with dew, and all/ /His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;/ /His still, soft call;/ /His knocking time; the soul's dumb watch,/ /When spirits their fair kindred catch. [p.80]/ /Were all my loud, evil days/ /Calm and unhaunted, as is thy dark tent,/ /Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice/ /Is seldom rent;/ /Then I in Heaven all the long year/ /Would keep, and never wander here./ /* * * */ /There is in God — some say —/ /A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here/ /Say it is late and dusky, because they/ /See not all clear./ /O for that Night ! Where I in Him/ /Might live invisible and dim!/