Christ, the King of glory. Let us imagine that all of us here present are in the number; such, O good God! is at all events our hope and desire; and our determination is to serve Thee during the short time of our lives that we may be amongst the elect.
When leaving the valley of Josaphat and ascending into the clouds. Now the journey begins, and in the first part of it we arrive at the lower regions of the heavens, where the winds and clouds have their dwelling. There we shall see and understand how those most subtile bodies, the winds, have that wonderful and hitherto incomprehensible power of uprooting the strongest trees with their breath, and overthrowing the most massive towers and buildings. Then we shall see where the rainbow gets its marvellous colors; what the dews are made of that fall on the earth in the early morning, to nourish the grass and the flowers; how it happens that when it rains the water comes down in drops from the clouds; how it is that in winter the water descends in the form of white, cold snow, and even in the hottest summer is changed into hail-stones. Then we shall understand what those alarming and fiery bodies are that we now call comets, that wander about the sky with their blazing tails, and fill people with terror and dismay; where the lightning and the thunder come from—all subjects that the wisest men on earth have been puzzling themselves about to no purpose. These and similar things we shall clearly understand in that triumphal procession.
In the sphere of the moon.
But let us not delay long here. All these things are mere trifles compared to what is still to be exhibited to our eyes when we ascend into a higher region, where the moon performs her revolutions. Is that, we shall exclaim with astonishment, the beautiful light that we looked on on earth merely as a white globe? What a wonderful and huge thing it is! Now, while we look at it, the earth seems as small to us as the moon did formerly; it looks like a child’s ball. Now we can see how it is that this vast globe was able to darken the sun in the middle of the day; now we know why the moon changed so often, why it appeared sometimes greater, sometimes less; why we saw sometimes only a half or quarter of it, while at other times the whole orb was visible; why, according to the wind and weather, it changed its color and appearance, being pale or red, troubled or clear. Now we can understand the wonderful influence of this heavenly body on earthly affairs, and why doctors had to attend to it when administering drugs or bleeding their patients, and