65 
day came when, in its majestic beauty, the Temple of God arose 
complete. 
Here we have a striking image of the destiny of humanity. 
God, the sovereign Architect, constructs throughout the ages a 
vast and glorious edifice, whose plan we have never seen, but 
which will be the Temple in which we all shall one day worship. 
Tar, far from heaven, far from the holy Zion, far from the abode 
of peace and glory, here in the land of our exile, the materials 
are being prepared ; for the noise of suffering and trial must not 
penetrate the sky ; each of us must finish at his post the work 
entrusted to him, renouncing all idea of comprehending the 
place it shall occupy in the universal harmony ; for how can 
we, workmen of a day, presume to understand or realize the 
designs of an eternal God ? 
Enough for us to know that our work, however humble it 
may be, is known to the universal Master ; that He has willed it, 
and that He will accept it if honestly done. Enough for us to 
believe that a day will come when the materials dispersed in a 
seeming confusion, which is of course to us incomprehensible 
now, shall be united in an order which shall ravish our delighted 
intelligence ; then all human pain, sacrifice, and anguish shall 
no longer seem to have been useless; then shall be recovered 
from oblivion all the noble deeds of heroism and hidden virtue 
now seen by God alone ; nothing shall then seem to have been 
the work of chance, or fate, in human history, or in our own in- 
dividual existence. Chance shall rule no longer, and the edifice 
that Divine wisdom by an earthly work has prepared, shall rise 
in beauty, sovereign and sublime as the eternal sanctuary of 
infinite love. Yet there is something wanting still ; doubtless it 
is an incomparable consolation to know that all concurs in the 
universal plan of God, that nothing is useless, nothing lost in 
any human life ; but what is there to assure us it is anything 
more than a lovely and taking theory ? How can we know that 
love is indeed the centre and the end of all the Divine dispensa- 
tion. Too many clouds hide it for me to believe in it ? Oh ! if I 
could only for a moment hear the beatings of my Eather’s heart, 
how would I say with Jacob, “ Tell me Thy name ! ” or with 
Job, “ Oh, that I could find him ! 39 or with Isaiah, <e Oh, that he 
would rend the heavens and come down ! ; ’Yes, between the 
hidden God and myself the distance is too great to believe in 
His love. I must see Him, and contemplate His glorious beauty 
face to face. Well, to this desire of the soul God has responded. 
The Incarnation! here is the best proof of God’s providence. On 
our earth we have seen appear and shine forth a holy love, the 
like of which humanity never before beheld. His love is the 
very foundation of the character of Jesus, the principle of all 
VOL. VII. f 
