We read of the Patriarch Isaac, that he went forth to meditate in the field. When you have opportunity imitate him, and leaving the busy town, the work of man, the haunt of sin, go forth, and mounting some eminence look around you, where hills and vallies, parks, pastures, and cornfields meet your view on every side; or walk through some wood or by some river side, and drink in the air poured round you in spring and summer, and listen to the joyous notes of various feathered songsters; or go into gardens and delight your senses with the perfect beauty and delicacy of form and colour, and the sweetness of the flowers you find there. Thus, when you have ranged through sights, and sounds, and odours, and your heart warms into joyousness, and with your voice seems full of praise and worship, reflect that all you have seen and observed is but a very poor and dim glimmering of the glory of the Maker, your God and Father in Christ. Such is He in His eternal uncreated beauty that, if it were given us to behold it, the rapture of the sight would exceed our present power to sustain. When Moses said to God, Shew me thy glory, He answered, thou canst not see my face, for man shall nut see me and live. But that mere reflection of God's glory which you may have by observation of created nature, and by thought and meditation, will be sufficient to sweep away gloomy and desponding thoughts, and a sadness which opposes your own growth in grace and your Christian usefulness to others. Let thy works, O Lord, praise thee, and thy saints bless thee. It is well written:
O God, O good beyond compare,
If thus Thy meaner works are fair,
If thus Thy bounties gild the span
Of ruin'd earth, and sinful man,
How glorious must the mansion be,
'Where Thy redeem'd shall dwell with Thee!
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp