eated image shine forth from God in spirit and truth. There is
harmonious beauty from the smallest leaf and flower to the large,
swelling bouquet, from our earth itself to the numberless globes in
the firmamental space--as far as the eye sees, as far as science
ventures, all, small and great, is beauty and harmony.

But if we turn to mankind, for whom we have the highest, the holiest
expression; "created in God's image," man, who is able to comprehend
and admit in himself all God's creation, the harmony in the harmony
then seems to be defective, for at our birth we are all equal! as
creatures we have equally "no right to demand;" yet how differently
God has granted us abilities! some few so immensely great, others so
mean! At our birth God places us in our homes and positions; and to
how many of us are allotted the hardest struggles! We are placed
_there_, introduced _there_--how many may not say justly: "It were
better for me that I had never been born!"

Human life, consequently--the highest here on the earth--does not come
under the laws of harmonious beauty: it is inconceivable, it is an
injustice, and thus cannot take place.

The defect of harmony in life lies in this:--that we only see a small
part thereof, namely, existence here on the earth: there must be a
life to come--an immortality.

That, the smallest flower preaches to us, as does all that is created
in beauty and harmony.

If our existence ceased with death here, then the most perfect work of
God was not perfect; God was not justice and love, as everything in
nature and revelation affirms; and if we be referred to the whole of
mankind, as that wherein harmony will reveal itself, then our whole
actions and endeavours are but as the labours of the coral-insect:
mankind becomes but a monument of greatness to the Creator: he would
then only have raised His _glory_, not shown His greatest _love_.
Loving-kindness is not self-love.

We are immortal! In this rich consciousness we are raised towards God,
fundamentally sure, that whatever happens to us, is for our good. Our
earthly eye is only able to reach to a certain boundary in space; our
soul's eye also has but a limited scope; but beyond _that,_ the same
laws of loving-kindness must reign, as here. The prescience of eternal
omniscience cannot alarm us; we human beings can apprehend the notion
thereof in ourselves. We know perfectly what development must take
place in the different seasons of the year;