a heavenly climate...

Another snow storm, more shoveling, but the sun is now out and all looks new...A break, today, from Unitarian Bible views in favor of this excerpt from a wonderful sermon I read this morning (before the power went out) by Ephraim Peabody called "Watching With Christ."

"It is one of the great blessings of Christianity, that it has filled this sphere of human life with higher moral thoughts, has surrounded us by this presence of truth, has placed stars in the otherwise darkened firmament. Over the abyss of human passion and ignorance move not shapes of evil alone, but holy beings, and Christ, and God, — a new class of ideas, into which we may rise by faith, and which constitute, as it were, a heavenly climate and sky for the mind. Our power to resist temptation depends mainly, not on mere strength of will, but on the habit of dwelling amidst these higher truths and obeying them. The closer the connection of our minds with these ideas, the more intimate our companionship with them, the greater our moral power. The mind receives light and strength from a higher source, The powers of evil may wait for us below, but they dare not ascend into this holy mountain. And so long as we retain this better spirit, temptation has but little power. It is not the soul's privilege only, but the soul's safety, to have its conversation in heaven."

Blessings