It is this higher world-plan that we call Nature, when we say Nature
leads men through want to industry, through the evils of general
disorder to a righteous polity, through the miseries of their
perpetual wars to final, ever-during peace. Thy will, O Infinite, thy
providence alone, is this higher Nature! This too is best understood
by artless simplicity, which regards this life as a place of
discipline and education, as a school for eternity; which, in all
the fortunes it experiences, the most trivial as well as the most
momentous, beholds thy ordinations designed for good; and which firmly
believes that all things will work together for good to those who love
their duty and know thee.
O truly have I spent the former days of my life in darkness! Truly
have I heaped errors upon errors, and thought myself wise! Now only
out of thy mouth, wondrous Spirit, I fully understand the doctrine
which seemed so strange to me![3] although my understanding had
nothing to oppose to it. For now only I overlook it, in its whole
extent, in its deepest meaning, and in all its consequences.
Man is not a product of the world of the senses; and the end of his
existence can never be attained in that world. His destination lies
beyond time and space and all that pertains to the senses. He must
know what he is and what he is to make himself. As his destination
is sublime, so his thought must be able to lift itself above all the
bounds of the senses.
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