9. The Christian has nobler exhibitions, if he wishes for them. He has true and profitable pleasures, if he will recollect himself. And to say nothing of those which he cannot yet contemplate, he has that beauty of the world to look upon and admire.14    [Compare Clement, vol. ii. p. 256, and note 1.] He may gaze upon the sun’s rising, and again on its setting, as it brings round in their mutual changes days and nights; the moon’s orb, designating in its waxings and warnings the courses of the seasons; the troops of shining stars, and those which glitter from on high with extreme mobility,—their members divided through the changes of the entire year, and the days themselves with the nights distributed into hourly periods; the heavy mass of the earth balanced by the mountains, and the flowing rivers with their sources; the expanse of seas, with their waves and shores; and meanwhile, the air, subsisting equally everywhere in perfect harmony, expanded in the midst of all, and in concordant bonds animating all things with its delicate life, now scattering showers from the contracted clouds, now recalling the serenity of the sky with its refreshed purity; and in all these spheres their appropriate tenants—in the air the birds, in the waters the fishes, on the earth man. Let these, I say, and other divine works, be the exhibitions for faithful Christians. What theatre built by human hands could ever be compared to such works as these? Although it may be reared with immense piles of stones, the mountain crests are loftier; and although the fretted roofs glitter with gold, they will be surpassed by the brightness of the starry firmament.15    [De Maistre, who is a Christian, with all his hereditary prejudice and enslavement, has a fine passage in the opening of his Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, which the reader will enjoy. It concludes with this saying:  “Les cœurs pervers n’ont jamais de belles nuits ni de beaux jours.” P. 7. vol. i. See vol. iv. p. 173, this series.] Never will any one admire the works of man, if he has recognised himself as the son of God. He degrades himself from the height of his nobility, who can admire anything but the Lord.

IX. Habet Christianus spectacula meliora, si velit; habet veras et profuturas voluptates, si se recognoverit. Et, ut omittam illa quae nondum contemplari possunt, habet istam mundi pulchritudinem, quam videat atque miretur, solis ortum aspiciat, rursus occasum mutuis vicibus dies noctesque revocantem, globum lunae temporum cursus incrementis suis decrementisque signantem, astrorum micantium choros et assidue de summa mobilitate fulgentes, anni totius per vices summa de summo membra divisa, et dies ipsos cum noctibus per horarum spatia digestos, terrae molem libratam cum montibus, et proflua flumina cum suis fontibus, extensa maria cum suis fluctibus 0786B atque littoribus, interim constantem pariter summa conspiratione nexibusque concordiae extensum aerem medium tenuitate sua cuncta vegetantem, nunc imbres contractis nubibus profundentem, nunc serenitatem refecta raritate revocantem, et in omnibus istis incolas proprios, in aere aves, in aquis pisces, in terra hominem. Haec, inquam, et alia opera divina sint Christianis fidelibus spectacula. Quod theatrum humanis manibus exstructum istis operibus poterit comparari? Magnis licet lapidum molibus exstruatur, cristae sunt montium altiores, et auro licet tecta laquearia resplendeant, astrorum fulgore vincentur. Numquam humana opera mirabitur quisquis se recognoverit filium Dei. Dejicit se de culmine generositatis suae qui admirari aliquid praeter Dominum potest.