The religious life of the present age, in all its purest and most vigorous manifestations, still clings with passionate ardor to the belief that God is every where present, and that the ceaseless, uniform, and direct agency of God is still upholding, moving, vivifying, and controlling all things. The harp of David is restrung and swept with a firmer hand. It rings with nobler conceptions, and swells into diviner harmonies. God is recognized as "_above_ all, _through_ all, and _in_ all." "In Him we live and move, and have our being." The Christian still believes, with a fuller and richer assurance, that God's presence-- "Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze. Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees." He still hears the voice of God in the thunder at midnight, and in the rustling of the forest leaves at noonday. He sees the beauty of God in "the silent faces of the clouds," and in the virgin blush of the solitary flower. He sees the life of God in the activities of organic nature, and marks his power and presence in the falling rain and noiseless dew, the flowing river and the restless ocean. The seasons, as they come round to him in their grateful vicissitudes, bring to him fresh tokens of the goodness of God, and inspire him with perennial joy. "These as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee.... But wandering oft, with brute, unconscious gaze, Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring; Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature, hurls the tempest forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life."[226]