Each individual makes his own universe, using only, out of the vastness of God’s provision, such things as he has eyes to see. In the broad, open, western plains, with far-extending horizon and translucent sky bedecked with bits of light to lure the seeing soul to heights heroic, lives one whose universe is no wider than his daily task, and whose zenith has never ascended above his hat-crown. Careless in observation, his universe is scarcely larger than the dug-out in which he crawls at night to sleep. Dwelling in a dark room of the crowded tenement, bound by the cords of sickness to a sufferer’s bed of pain, lies one who knows nothing of the majesty of wind-swept fields, or vastness of the star-lit sky, but whose careful observations have made a zenith high enough to overarch the throne of God, and a horizon wide enough to include every need of the human soul. The richness of life depends largely upon how many of the things of life which ordinary people call commonplace can be crowded into the range of vision. The man possessing most of earth is not necessarily a landowner, but he who, whether rich or poor, learns to observe and appreciate the things about him. Christ never owned a foot of land. Standing in the dusty highway, worn and weary by countless deeds of sacrificial love, he exclaimed: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay his head.” He was poverty-stricken, yet, in all the history of the world, never was one so rich as he. For him every lily held a golden casket filled with an unmeasured wealth of inspiration. For him the birds winged their way from heights celestial to sing their songs of divine forethought. Each color of the sky was a prophet proclaiming the things of God. Speaking to his disciples, men who would necessarily remain poor and homeless, he said: “Blessed are the meek [those who are not looking for thrones of authority and power, but who, in humble state, learn to see the divine vision], for they own the earth.” I know such an one. A laborer in the field, he spends his life toiling for the one he loves, living in a rented cottage, faring on common food, dressing in coarse-woven garments, and yet possessing untold wealth. With blistered feet and sweat-washed brow, I have seen him coming home, smiling with beaming tenderness, as he carefully held in his calloused hand the frail, pink petals of the first spring beauty he had found blooming by his way. He never owned anything in particular, yet there was nothing in the universe that he did not possess and enjoy with rapturous heart. He knows that the voice of God is heard, not only in the roar of turbulent cataract, or reverberating peal of the majestic thunder, but also in the bog and quagmire. “For in the mud and scum of things, There’s always something, something sings.”