The Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not merely to give new light and a day-spring from on high to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, but to burn up out of sight, and off the universe, the chaff, hay, and stubble which men have built on the One Living Foundation, Christ, in that unquenchable fire, of which it is written that _Death_ and _Hell_ shall one day be cast into it also, to share the fate of all other unnatural and abominable things, and God's universe be--what it must be some day--_very good_. * * * * * Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till all enemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if they confess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth. And God shall be All in All. Those last are wide words. _Letters and Sermons_. 1856. SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. AUGUST 24. St. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr. Blessed are they who once were persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Great indeed is their reward, for it is no less than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore that supreme moral beauty, of which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art, all poetry, all music, are but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes, dim reflected rays of the clear light of everlasting day. _All Saints' Day Sermons_. September. That poet knew but little of either streams or hearts who wrote-- "Nor ever had the breeze of passion Stirred her heart's clear depths." The lonely fisher, the lover of streams and living fountains, knows that when the stream stops it is turbid. The deep pools and still flats are always brown--always dark--the mud lies in them, the trout _sleep_ in them. When they are clearest they are still tinged brown or gray with some foreign matter held in solution--the brown of selfish sensuality or the gray of morbid melancholy. But when they are free again! when they hurry over rock and weed and sparkling pebble-shallow, then they are clear! Then all the foreign matter, the defilement which earth pours into them, falls to the ground, and into them the trout work up for life and health and food; and through their swift yet yielding eddies--_moulding themselves to every accident_, _yet separate and undefiled_--shine up the delicate beauties of the subaqueous world, the Spirit-glories which we can only see in this life through the medium of another human soul, but which we can never see unless that soul is stirred by circumstance into passion and motion and action strong and swift. Only the streams which have undergone long and _severe struggles_ from their very fountain-head have clear pools. _MS._ 1843. Goodness. September 1.