August 3. Now I see life more clearly in all its bearings, its dangers, and its hopes,--its earthly and heavenly unity. It is almost like beginning a new childhood in the Kingdom of Heaven. All things centre themselves in Christ, the living, spiritual Christ, who is the Life, the Reality, the Person, who makes us real to each other through the eternal union with the Father. Nature is alive. Nothing is dead that the heart of God has touched. And human beings seem so near and dear! I think of those who have gone, of my sisters Louisa and Charlotte, of my mother, of all the friends whom I see no more, but who have made part of my true life. They seem more alive than when here; my communion is with them and with all the living to-day. August 6. This morning, with the opening of my windows on the white floating clouds of summer, and the warm hillside, softened with the mist of coming showers, a song and a hymn arose in my thoughts:-- O Thou Eternal Loveliness,--I am part of Thee, or I am not at all! Nature is the expression of Thee, but yet more is this human life of mine. Because I am, and can feel and see this beauty,--feel it as a part of my own life and soul, I know that Thou art--the Divine One in whom all that is immortal of me is enfolded, and from whom it is unfolded. How can Thy being be questioned by one who has had a single glimpse of the beauty of this Thy world? It is such happiness to feel that I am part of it all, because I belong to Thee! Yet I should never have known the spirit of it all, never should have understood the secret, except through the Son, who has brought Thy children back to their spiritual home in Thee. In Him the evil of earth is conquered, and the good of earth is shown also to be the good of heaven. To be of one spirit with Him, the Perfect Love and the Infinite Loveliness, is to belong to the Whole, and so to Thee. And so there can be no losing of anything for us eternally. Who shall separate us from any true Love? August 24. On the summit of Moosilauke. Have been here four or five days, in cloud and mist and rain. One bright sunset, two pleasant afternoons, on the last of which there was the most beautiful phenomenon that we call “the sun drawing water.” I never looked down upon the earth through that many tinted transparency of sun and mist before. It was wide as the whole West, and the tints of green upon the nearer hills were brought out with softest intensity. It was like an open fan of thinnest gossamer, wavering in all possible hues between us and the landscape. But the sign was true. It has rained steadily for three days and nights.