There is a spiritual bond between Him and all finite rational beings; and He himself is this spiritual bond of the rational universe. Let me will, purely and decidedly, my duty, and He wills that, in the spiritual world at least, my will shall prosper. Every moral resolution of a finite being goes up before Him, and—to speak after the manner of mortals—moves and determines Him, not in consequence of a momentary satisfaction, but in accordance with the eternal law of His being. With surprising clearness does this thought, which hitherto was surrounded with darkness, now reveal itself to my soul; the thought that my will, merely as such, and through itself, shall have results. It has results, because it is immediately and infallibly perceived by another Will to which it is related, which is its own accomplishment, and the only living principle of the spiritual world; in Him it has its first results, and, through Him, it then acquires an influence on the whole spiritual world, which is nothing but a product of that Infinite Will.
Thus do I approach—the mortal must speak in his own language—thus do I approach that Infinite Will; and the voice of conscience in my soul, which teaches me, in every situation of life, what I have there to do, is the channel through which again His influence descends upon me. That voice, sensualized by my environment, and translated into my language, is the oracle of the Eternal World which announces to me how I am to perform my part in the order of the spiritual universe, or in the Infinite Will, who is Himself that order. I cannot, indeed, survey or comprehend that spiritual order, and I need not to do so;—I am but a link in its chain, and can no more judge of
