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THE LIGHT. 



every day, by unveiling the world, creates it anew and preserves it. 

 We revive, we breathe again, we traverse our dwelling-places, we 

 regain our families, we count over our herds. Nothing has perished, 

 and life is complete. No tiger has sui-prised us. No horde of beasts 

 of prey have invaded us. The black serpent has not profited by our 

 slumbers. Blessed be thou, O sun, who givest us yet another day ! 



All animals, says the Hindu, and especially the wisest, the 

 elephant, the Brahmin of creation, salute the sun, and praise it grate- 

 fully at dawn; they sing to it from their own hearts a hymn of 

 thankfulness. 



But a single creature utters it, pronounces it for all of us, sings it. 

 Who ? One of the weak — which feai-s most keenly the night, and 

 hails with eagerest joy the morning — which lives in and by the light 

 — whose tender, infinitely sensitive, extended, penetrating vision, 

 discerns all its accidents — and which is most intimately associated 

 with the decline, the eclipses, and the resurrection of light. 



The bird for all nature chants the morning hymn and the bene- 

 diction of the day. He is her priest and her augur, her divine and 

 innocent voice. 



