Immensity

“ For thy almighty power is equal to thy wisdom, and extends and diffuses itself equally, because it is its only rule and measure. For what other measure can there be of power that is immense, but immensity itself? ”

“ He grants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality; and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superior force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression: “Excrément!” ”

“ Great God! created spirits are too insignificant to raise the glory of thy works! We lose ourselves in their immensity. To tell them one must resemble thyself on infinity. Humbly contented, I remain in my own prescribed circle. ”

“ Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to heaven; that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; ”

“ One morning in October, therefore, tempted by the serene perfection of the autumn of 1831, they set out, and found themselves at break of day near the Barrière du Maine. It was not dawn, it was daybreak; a delightful and stern moment. A few constellations here and there in the deep, pale azure, the earth all black, the heavens all white, a quiver amid the blades of grass, everywhere the mysterious chill of twilight. A lark, which seemed mingled with the stars, was carolling at a prodigious height, and one would have declared that that hymn of pettiness calmed immensity. ”

“ Grand Is the Seen Grand is the seen, the light, to me—grand are the sky and stars, Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space, And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolutionary; But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those, Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing the sea, (What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what amount without thee?) More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul! More multiform far—more lasting thou than they. ”

“ Worthy art thou, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast created all things, and by thy will they were created and have their being. Revelation 4:11
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. ”

“ THE ULTIMATE FORCE.
The universe is God's name writ large. Thought goes up the shining suns as golden stairs, and reads the consecutive syllables—all might, and wisdom, and beauty; and if the heart be fine enough and pure enough, it also reads everywhere the mystic name of love. Let us learn to read the hieroglyphics, and then turn to the blazonry of the infinite page. That is the key-note; the heavens and the earth declaring the glory of God, and men with souls attuned listening. ”

“ What blessedness it is to dwell amidst this transparent air, which the eye can pierce without limit, amidst these floods of pure, soft, cheering light, under this immeasurable arch of heaven, and in sight of these countless stars! An infinite universe is each moment opened to our view. And this universe is the sign and symbol of Infinite Power, Intelligence, Purity, Bliss, and Love. ”

“ But the crown and consummation of the whole is, that godliness is not merely the Director, the Ornament, or the Joy of this life; it is the prelude to the Life that is to come.
What are to be our employments in heaven? How shall we be sustained? How perceive, or feel, or rejoice? Shall we recognise in glory those whom we loved on earth?—or is the Alpha and the Omega of faith, the Alpha and the Omega of fruition? ”

“ Exalted, immeasurably exalted art Thou above any attempt to measure the greatness of Thy Cause, above any comparison that one may seek to make, above the efforts of the human tongue to utter its import! From everlasting Thou hast existed, alone with no one else beside Thee, and wilt, to everlasting, continue to remain the same, in the sublimity of Thine essence and the inaccessible heights of Thy glory. ”

“ I saw new regions of space, glowing with a new creation; the angelic hierarchies rising through new energies, new triumphs, new orders of existence; developments of power and magnificence, of sublime mercy and essential glory, too high for the conception of mortal faculties. ”

“ Nebulous, undefined, shadowy, matter floats in space till God speaks his thought in Act—then the vague, misty mass comes into harmonious order, and goes on its certain way through the boundless sky, a brilliant, beautiful star—a guide to the uncertain mariner, and the wandering fugitive, and the home for unknown life.
Creation is the speech—the Word of God. ”

“ Upon that achievement it built an unprecedented form of life, a super-“natural” edifice of infinite power, as yet but dimly realized, but which in its full beauty and perfection will be nothing less than Divine. ”

“ But what are those huge, unmoving monuments of man's ambition, compared to this grandest of creation's mysteries, whose deep and thundering voice is repeating, day after day and night after night,—"forever and ever," and whose majestic motion, rushing onward, plunging downward, never pausing, never resting, is emblematic of the sublime march of Deity, from everlasting to everlasting,—from eternity to eternity? ”

“ By Greatness, I do not only mean the Bulk of any single Object, but the Largeness of a whole View, considered as one entire Piece. Such are the Prospects of an open Champain Country, a vast uncultivated Desart, of huge Heaps of Mountains, high Rocks and Precipices, or a wide Expanse of Waters, where we are not struck with the Novelty or Beauty of the Sight, but with that rude kind of Magnificence which appears in many of these stupendous Works of Nature. Our Imagination loves to be filled with an Object, or to grasp at any thing that is too big for its Capacity. ”

“ For if grandeur be one main ingredient in the sublime, when an object such as a seemingly boundless level, or rolling plain, the extent of which the eye is unable to scan, lies before you, when, after long marches, it still appears interminable, the mind is perhaps more impressed with the idea of magnitude than by large masses, however enormous, with defined outlines presented to the view. ”

“ The study of the human figure became a noble object of ambition, and led to conceptions of ideal grace and loveliness such as no one human being perhaps ever possessed in all respects. And not merely grace and beauty were thus represented in marble or bronze, but dignity, repose, majesty. We see in those figures which have survived the ravages of time suggestions of motion, rest, grace, grandeur,--every attitude, every posture, every variety of form. We see also every passion which moves the human soul,--grief, rage, agony, shame, joy, peace. ”

“ Every one of these gifts is an undoubted evidence of the majesty, the power, the ascendancy, the all-embracing knowledge of the one true God—exalted be His glory. Consider the sense of touch. Witness how its power hath spread itself over the entire human body. Whereas the faculties of sight and of hearing are each localized in a particular center, the sense of touch embraceth the whole human frame. Glorified be His power, magnified be His sovereignty! ”

“ By the contemplation of such beautiful, though almost imperceptibly minute, arrangements of the Divine Artist, we are more surely led to form a just estimate of His infinite power, wisdom, and foresight, than even by the contemplation of the boundless vault of heaven, illuminated with the light reflected from its thousands of stars ”

“ In the Creation of the World, where the Deity stretches out his arms, and with one hand calls forth the sun and with the other the moon, do we not see a grandeur, which, with the simplest expression, awakes in us the most sublime ideas? ”

“ The order, beauty, and sublimity of the heavenly bodies, moving through space in silent majesty, each in its own orbit, balancing and counterbalancing each other without an error in time or revolution, all preserving their own identity and performing their own mission, proceeding thus through everlasting ages, are perennial witnesses of the existence, power and glory of God. ”

“ Is not such a world stamped with the imprint of the Omnipotent—from when He first paved its foundation with enduring granite, and roofed it over with the soft blue of heaven, and lighted it by day with the glorious sun, and hung out the moon and stars to gladden the night, until at last He fashioned a world beautiful enough for the abode of his “own image” to dwell in: then He created man. ”

“ We are learning to see all round us the greatness and glory of the Creator. We can see the Almighty hand—the infinite goodness—in the humblest flower. We praise Him—we thank Him—we glorify Him—we recognise in creation the power of His word. ”

“ I see a race without disease of flesh or brain,—shapely and fair,—the married harmony of form and function,—and, as I look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all, in the great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope. ”

“ The last of these is the true sublime, in human nature. That elevation by which the soul of man, raising and extending itself above the order of this creation, and brightened with a certain ray of divinity, looks down on the condition of mortals. ”

“ Its vastness, its freedom, its joy, and its beauty overwhelm the mind. All things else seem puny and momentary beside the life that this immense creation unfolds and inspires. Sometimes it shines in the sun, a wilderness of shimmering silver. ”

“ With how much skill must the throne of God be erected! ... How great must be the majesty of that place, where the whole art of creation has been employed, and where God has chosen to shew himself in the most magnificent manner! What must be the architecture of infinite power under the direction of infinite wisdom? ”

“ And the wonder working in the world beyond them, —this huge, beautiful marvel, planned by the human brain and carried out by mere human hands, this great thing with which all the world seemed to them to be throbbing, and which seemed to set no limit to itself and prove that there was no limit to the power of human wills and minds,—this filled them with a passion of restlessness and yearning greater than they had ever known before. ”

“ The generative profile of that torso helps us to understand, reveals to us the proportions of the world. And the miracle is in this, that the assembled profiles, in the sense of depth, of length, and of width, express, by an incomprehensible magic, the human soul and its passions, and the character that shapes the heart of beings.
13The ancients have obtained by a minimum of gesture, by their modelling, both the individual character and the grace borrowed from grandeur that relates the human form to the forms of the universal life. ”

“ You stand a long time on the margin of eternity—may that margin prove the verge of eternal glory! As the body grows feeble, may the soul grow strong! As the bodily sight becomes dim, may the heavenly vision become brighter, and the heavenly aspirations and assurances stronger! ”

“ It not only reveals the sublime beauty of that life that is found on the luminous spiritual heights, but also opens the way to the sweetness and glory of those lofty realms. "There is another and a better world," and this is found on the heights. ”

“ Great rest and support of life, which shines by its light and whose light illuminates. He became, was created and became full, he went forth with great power and became mighty through the greatness of knowledge. ”

“ The majestic outgoings of the Almighty, as developed in the onward progress of our race, infinitely transcend, in all the elements of profoundness, mystery, and grandeur, all that man's fancy can create. ”

“ Ascend with the greatest sagacity from the earth to heaven, and then again descend to the earth, and unite together the powers of things superior and things inferior. Thus you will obtain the glory of the whole world, and obscurity will fly away from you. ”

“ That giant's work at which through the centuries the noblest and best have toiled, trying to lead mankind upward toward the light, and in short, to bring our beautiful earth nearer to Heaven. Is not that worth striving for all one's life? ”

“ Go up like mist before the rising sun?
And in this single instance of our Lord
Arising from the grave, see all men rise,
And all men’s souls discovered in his soul,
Their quality and essence, strength made clear? ”

“ It always appeared to me that there must be in this vast, illimitable, and beautiful universe, myriads of beings, superior to our weak mortal selves, and at the head of all and over all, an immortal Being of infinite perfections, which thinking men in all countries and ages have called GOD. And shall not we, immortal souls, increase in knowledge and wisdom, and as the ages roll on, more and more perceive and understand this mighty universe and its Author? ”

“ Hence the vast and rapid expansion of his towering genius that ultimately commanded the awe of kings and the admiration of the world—comprehending the philosophy of mind, nature, science, art, government—all the relations of creation from the dust under his feet—the myriads of animalculæ in a drop of water, up to the bright seraphs in the skies and up to Nature's God. ”

“ Concentration of purpose, simplicity and sincerity of aim, a heart centred upon Him, a mind drawn to contemplate unfalteringly and without distraction of crosslights His beauty, His supremacy, His completeness, and a soul utterly devoted to Him—these are the conditions to which that light will ever manifest itself, and illumine the whole man. ”