Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/118

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114
The Parable of Creation.

your belief in his agency, operation or influence. Spiritual life is an eminently practical thing. It does not ask you to be ever dreaming to the neglect of your work, or ever ecstatic to the point of forgetting that you live in the world for the world. But I do mean that you will feel the Lord as you linger amid his blessings just as you know the presence of the sunlight as you walk the ways of earth, just as you realize the moon and stars as above you when by their radiance you travel the paths of night, just as you revel in the perfume of the flowers or the new mown hay, when you pass through gardens or meadows. You may be conversing on utterly incongruous themes; your thoughts may run deeply on the cares and questions your worldly duties lay before you; you may be at play or at work; yet they are an ever present, ever conscious influence, which is as realistic as the sunshine which surrounds you and as certain as that you live.

So may your spiritual life be saturated with the consciousness of the Lord's presence and ownership and influence in all the good you will or do, in all the truth you think or say, in all your faithfulness in work, steadfastness in duty, sincerity in office, purity in principle, glowing love of use; yea in every ripple of laughter, in every enjoyment or pleasure, in every innocent pastime. And though thought does not outwardly nor actively think it,