e boundaries in space of the created universe, flings, as it
were, with one rapid toss, into that large room the whole that it can
contain, and triumphs over it all.

As the former clause proclaimed the powerlessness of Time, so this
proclaims the powerlessness of that other great mystery of creatural
life which we call Space, Height or depth, it matters not. That
diffusive love diffuses itself equally in all directions. Up or down,
it is all the same. The distance from the centre is the same to
Zenith or to Nadir.

Here, we have the same process applied to that idea of Omnipresence
as was applied in the former clause to the idea of Eternity. That
thought, so hard to grasp with vividness, and not altogether a glad
one to a sinful soul, is all softened and glorified, as some solemn
Alpine cliff of bare rock is when the tender morning light glows on
it, when it is thought of as the Omnipresence of Love. 'Thou, God,
seest me,' may be a stern word, if the God who sees be but a mighty
Maker or a righteous Judge. As reasonably might we expect a prisoner
in his solitary cell to be glad when he thinks that the jailer's eye
is on him from some unseen spy-hole in the wall, as expect any
thought of God but one to make a man read that grand one hundred and
thirty-ninth Psalm with joy: 'If I ascend into heaven, Thou art
there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.' So may a
man say shudderingly to himself, and tremble as he asks in vain,
'Whither shall I flee from Thy Presence?' But how different it all is
when we can cast over the marble whiteness of that solemn thought the
warm hue of life, and change the form of our words into this of our
text: 'Nor height, nor depth, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God.'

In that great ocean of the divine love we live and move and have our
being, floating in it like some sea flower which spreads its filmy
beauty and waves its long tresses in the depths of mid-ocean. The
sound of its waters is ever in our ears, and above, beneath, around
us, its mighty currents run evermore. We need not cower before the
fixed gaze of some stony god, looking on us unmoved like those
Egyptian deities that sit pitiless with idle hands on their laps, and
wide-open lidless eyes gazing out across the sands. We need not fear
the Omnipresence of Love, nor the Omniscience which knows us
altogether, and loves us even as it knows. Rather we shall be glad
that we are ever in His Presence, and d