SUNDAY 29

16-22: October

Matthew 22: 15-22 (Sermon 2: “Caesar and God”)

I Thessalonians 1: 1-10

Exodus 33: 12-33 (Sermon 1: “The Most Holy Mystery”)

Psalm 99

PREPARATION

The joy of the Lord be with you all.

And also with you!

If you come with fixed ideas and concrete expectations, prepare to loosen them for you are in the Presence of the ultimate Mystery.

If you come with meagre faith and few expectations, prepare to have your soul enlarged by the Holy One who has high hopes for you.

By the Holy Spirit God is here waiting for us in this house of praise.

Let us worship in spirit and truth.

This is a time for worship.

God is awesome beyond all our ability to comprehend,

beautiful beyond all possible imagining..

The Lord our God reigns, let all the earth tremble.

It is written:

“No one could look on the face of God and go on living.”

But we have glimpsed his glory, in the face of Jesus Christ.

The Lord our God is holy.

Let us exalt in the Lord

and worship at his footstool,

PRAYER OF APPROACH

Most loving God, you are the Joy of loving hearts! Please touch us with the fringes of your glory, so that our minds may become alert to you and our souls reach up to you with that mixture of praise and yearning love which is the most precious of our delights. May Christ give us the confidence, and the Spirit grant us the liberty, to worship you with awe yet without reservation or fear. For your love’s sake.

Amen!

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE

Friends, come as you are. Don’t wait to tidy up your mind or wash your feelings, God’s love in Christ can do that far better than is humanly possible. Come as you are and put yourself at the mercy of redeeming love.

Let us pray.

God our Saviour, here we are with many faults together with our few gifts and loves.

Here we are with the fruits of some wisdom but also with the weeds of our folly.

Here we are bearing the gratitude for a small victories yet shame for soft defeats.

Here we are aware of some sins but blind to other aspects of evil in our lives.

Here we are wanting you to know it all, to forgive the ugly and rescue the beautiful.

God our Saviour, here we are totally dependent on your gift of salvation,

through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen!

FORGIVENESS

This is what the most holy Judge says to those who repent and believe. ‘My daughter, my son,

your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.’ That word is meant for you. and for me; in its graciousness we are set free.

Thanks be to God!

The peace of the Lord Jesus be with you all.

And also with you.

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Dear God,

what do you think

of kids like me who argue a lot?

Sometimes my arguing is good stuff,

you know, for the truth.

Yet I must admit that often

it is just trying to appear smart

or to get my own way.

Please help me, God,

to do good arguing well,

but to get smart and stop

all the big-headed and stupid stuff.

Most of all,

let me do my best arguing

with kindness in my heart.

Amen!

PSALM 99

Our God rules over all time and space,

let all people shiver in wonder.

Our Lord is seated among heavenly beings,

let small earthlings tremble with love.

Our Saviour is great in the city of God,

high above the pomp of nations.

Let people praise your awesome name,

holy, holy, holy are you!

Strong King and lover of justice for all,

you have set up a rule that is reliable.

You deal out better than fairness

and do good for your chosen people.

Celebrate the Lord our God!

Bow down at the feet of sheer love.

Moses and Aaron served the Lord,

Samuel called on the holy Name.

God answered when they cried for help,

speaking to them from the guiding cloud.

They embraced God’s rules for a better life,

they kept the guidelines that were given.

Wonderful God, you certainly answered,

and was a forgiving Friend to them.

But those who clung to wrongdoing

found that injustices were avenged.

Lift up your hearts and voices,

sing your loftiest songs to our God.

Worship the Lord in the highest places,

for the One we love is utter Holiness!

© B.D. Prewer 2001

A TAXING QUESTION

Matthew 22: 15-22

They phrased their question

guilefully,

savoured its cunning

gleefully,

and put it to him

artfully.

No man could answer

truthfully

a taxation question,

carefully

evading pitfalls

ruefully.

He caught them out

masterfully,

as they held Caesar’s image

wrongfully

in the Temple court

shamefully.

They went away

balefully

to take counsel

stealthily

to conclude the matter

spitefully.

© B.D. Prewer 1995

COLLECT

Most holy Friend, giver of faith and sharer of wondrous love, please strengthen in us an undivided loyalty to you. Out of that first loyalty, let us find the wisdom to fulfil all our small obligations with generosity and patience, not counting the cost but giving our best to the world

for which Christ has paid the ultimate price. In his name we pray.

Amen!

* A shortened version follows

SERMON: THE MOST HOLY MYSTERY

Exodus 33: 18-20

Moses said to God: “Please show me your glory.” And God answered: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will give you my name as ‘The Lord’ who will be gracious to whom I chose to be gracious, and merciful to whom I wish. But you cannot see my face, for no human can look on me and still live.”

Moses again today.

The remarkable Moses asked for one thing that no human can ever have. For to have it would be more than this frail mortal mind could bear. He wanted to look on the face of God. We will return to Moses later in this sermon. For now I want to stay very much in the present.

How do we maintain a sense of awe and mystery, without sliding backwards into primitive superstition and terror?

I believe today’s world is hungry for genuine mystery. Not Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell or

the new generation of “who dun it” writers. I’m talking about the spine-tingling Profound; encountering and being overwhelmed by the unfathomable glory of the Transcendent Power that existed before the universe began and will still be when it is no more. That is what people hunger for.

Maybe the tendency of our contemporaries to play around with the occult; séances; fortune telling; astrology, and communicating with departed spirits, is their attempt to revive this sense of transcendence.

Great thinkers of the last few centuries, with the rigorous application of the so called “scientific method,” have been extremely successful at explaining away many of life’s little mysteries. We should not regret that. It has rid humanity of a burden of superstition and misinformation in ways that should make the angels in heaven celebrate.

No doubt it has also robbed many a pastor and priest of a fall back position, from where they can stir up fears in order to get the flock back in control. Again I see that consequence as something likely to cause celebration among the angels.

However, we seem to have reached the stage when numerous people assume that science has just about eliminated all mystery. To be fair, the majority of truly great scientists do not share that superficial view. The more they delve into the deep questions the more they encounter deeper mystery and often begin to experience profound awe. It is the lesser minds, sometime pumped up with the own self importance, that tend to pontificate as if they have all the answers to all the questions.

When one reads the probing books of the agnostic physicist Dr Paul Davies of the University of Adelaide (such as the “Cosmic Blueprint” and “The Mind of God”) we see an extremely intelligent mind bumping repeatedly into areas of unfathomable mystery. He is not prepared to call the mystery “God,” but he knows there is something defying explanation. His is a religious unbelief that is almost a reverent worship.

There is a similar respect for the ultimate ‘mystery’ in the superb novels of the physics Prof. Dr.Gregory Benford of the University of California. Such first-rate minds as these know when they are on the edge of unfathomable depths, and are not too proud to admit it.

It is a grave error to think we have eliminated mystery. Or that we ever can. Yet millions of people around us seem to imagine that we have. Some are glib about it, and reckon they do okay without it. Others get frightened, and go looking for mystery in weird religions and wild theories propounded by self appointed prophets of the new age.

ANY SENSE OF MYSTERY HERE?

What about the church? To what degree is there a sense of Holy Mystery present in our worship? How much are we caught up in awesome love, so profound that it has an element of holy dread in it?

Let me try to outline a dilemma I have.

Christ Jesus has delivered us from primitive fear in the presence of God. As his disciple John later wrote: “There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear.” Christ taught us to pray to God as a tender parent. He chose the tender name “Abba” for God, which is what we say whenever we begin the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven.”

Some times in gatherings of Christian young people I hear them, when praying, use the expression “Heavenly Dad.” For some reason I get edgy, slightly uncomfortable when I hear God spoken to in this way. I have also felt the same way in prayer meetings with older people when the language verges on “sugary sentimental.’ Yet rationally I must assent to what they are expressing. After all, they are praying to God with the familiarity that Christ asked us to have. It is wonderful that the perfect love of God in Christ has cast out fear! I don’t want to go back to a religion of fear! Never!

Yet I still remain edgy. Has our familiarity with God bred something verging on contempt? I don’t really mean contempt. Maybe it is rather like taking another person for granted; being so familiar that wonder has gone out of the relationship. Have we tried to make God so much a part of the ordinary that we have forgotten how totally OTHER, so spine-tinglingly OTHER, God really is?

Some people hate modern versions of the Bible and want only to hear the King James Version.

They tell me they wish modern translations had never been made. Their reason is that other versions do not sound elegant and special enough. They sound too much like the language of a gossip column in a magazine. Such folk insist that the King James Version makes the Scripture sound very special, which it should always be.

I think I hear what they are saying, even though I do not agree with their argument. The Bible is special and unique, God is wonderfully unique. What I hear from them is a valid a protest against trivial chumminess; again the loss of “otherness” and the neglect of Mystery in worship.

I have heard Roman Catholics express a similar thing when they become nostalgic about the old Latin Mass. Worshipping in a time-honoured language like Latin, increased the sense of “otherness”, maintained a feeling of mystery, they tell me. Again I think I hear what they are saying even though (from my limited understanding of their situation) I cannot agree with the terms of their argument. They are hungry for the moments of wonder. the sense of “otherness.”

Here then in a nutshell is my dilemma: How can we celebrate the faith that worships God fearlessly, without turning worship into a chummy, superficial gathering?

MOSES AND THE GLORY OF GOD

It’s time to engage again with Moses. He is up on the heights of Mt Sinai communing with God like a friend. He wishes he could see God face to face.

Moses said to God: “Please show me your glory.” And God answered: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will give you my name as ‘The Lord’ who will be gracious to whom I chose to be gracious, and merciful to whom I wish. But you cannot see my face, for no human can look on me and still live.”

In this story the element of divine Transcendence is wonderfully maintained. God is accessible, God is there speaking with Moses, but God is not reduced to commonality. God remains the ultimate Mystery.

Yet God does in fact make Divine “goodness pass before” our eyes; it is all around us every day. This generosity of God is a witness to his true face, but it is not the actual countenance. Also God does give Moses a name-: the same name given when Moses is called by God at the burning bush. It is the name that is a verb not a noun; we call it Yahweh, but its meaning expresses the total freedom of God to be and do whatever God wishes. We cannot define God, cannot assign limits. This is underlined in the passage today when we read: “I will be gracious to whom I chose to be gracious, and merciful to whom I wish.”

Then the warning: “You cannot look on my face. For no mortal can look on me and live.” I find this a wonderful help. God is too much for us. Everything that is hidden about God is for our well being. We could not cope with the glorious Otherness of God. God in loving kindness hides the glory of ultimate holiness from us.

This chapter in Exodus concludes with the whimsical story of God making a concession to faithful Moses. He is told of a crevice in a rock where he may hide. God will pass by and Moses will be safe in the crevice and protected from harm. He shall get a glimpse of God, not front on but departing. I don’t intend to demean this fecund story in the slightest, but it reads like a man protecting himself from a distant nuclear blast. Such is the glory of God: the radiance of the Holy One who with one word brought into existence this enormous universe of a billion, billion suns.

PLENTY OF AWE IN THE BIBLE

The sense of awe is often present in the Bible. Moses on Mt Sinai; Elijah on Mt Carmel; Ezekiel feeling himself lifted up by a lock of his hair and suspended between heaven and earth; Isaiah with his dazzling vision of the Lord in the Temple; Peter James and John on the mount of transfiguration; Paul on the road to Damascus when the blinding light shone from above; young Stephen just a few minutes away from death by stoning sees the heavens opened and the glory of God, with Jesus standing at the right hand.

What about us?

I return to the question I put earlier: How to maintain a sense of awe in our worship, but an awe that is without fear? How to express the loving intimacy of God which drives out fear without losing the sense of wonder?

Sorry folks, I don’t have the answer! I know,-preachers are expected to be the explainers, the voice that has the answers. Well, I haven’t! Far from it. The question, like the glory of God, is far too much for me.

You must be involved in the answer. That sense of Mystery is something we all should seek and pray for. We should all contribute to an understanding of how to foster awe; how do to prevent familiarity breeding a triviality. You need to work on it, for what is most precious to you may not be identical to my experience. Please tell me when you have some of the answers. In the event that you don't come up with an adequate answer, maybe merely about 1% of it, then I suspect you will have come very close to the truth!

Hesitantly I will share with you the 1% I do know.

Like the people of the Old Testament I sometimes feel awe in the power and intricacy and ravishing beauty of creation.

I can sometimes feel awe when certain passages of the Bible strike me as if I have heard them for the first time.

I can feel awe when a brilliant but humble scientist stretches my mind far beyond the everyday to the sheer mystery of every thing around us and beyond us.

I feel awe when I go into the Outback and sleep under the stars.

I also feel awe when, in God-chosen moments, the Holy Spirit surges up within me and leaves me breathless with wonder.

However, for me the times when I most readily sense the ultimate awe is when the wonder of the love of Christ Jesus hits home.

The place that is the most fruitful is at the Lord’s Table. When another human being, be they priest, pastor or a lay person, with wonderment in their eyes looks into mine as they hand me bread and wine and say: “The Body of Christ. The Blood of Christ.” In that moment is contained the wonder the of holy incarnation, the wonder of the crucifixion, and the wonder of the resurrection. I am awestruck. Encountering love is the most profound Mystery. There more than anywhere else in creation, I see the glory of God passing by. At that point I can only watch and adore.

SERMON: THE MOST HOLY MYSTERY

Exodus 33: 18-20

Moses again today.

________________________________________________

How do we maintain a sense of awe and mystery, without sliding backwards into primitive superstition and terror?

I believe today’s world is hungry for genuine mystery. Not Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell or

the new generation of “who dun it” writers like my favourite, Dean koontz.

I’m talking about the spine-tingling Profound; encountering and being overwhelmed by the unfathomable glory of the Transcendent Power that existed before the universe began and will still be when it is no more. That is what people hunger for.

The rigorous application of the so called “scientific method,” has been extremely successful at explaining away many of life’s little mysteries. We should not regret that. It has rid humanity of a burden of superstition and misinformation in ways that should make the angels in heaven celebrate.

However, we seem to have reached the stage when numerous people assume that science has just about eliminated all mystery. Yet the science more delves into the deep questions the we encounter even deeper mystery and often begin to experience profound awe.

It is a grave error to think we have eliminated mystery.

ANY SENSE OF MYSTERY HERE?

What about the church? To what degree is there a sense of Holy Mystery present in our worship? How much are we caught up in awesome love, so profound that it has an element of holy dread in it?

Let me try to outline a dilemma I have.

Yet rationally I assent to what they are expressing. After all, they are praying to God with the familiarity that Christ asked us to have. It is wonderful that the perfect love of God in Christ has cast out fear! I don’t want to go back to a religion of fear! Never!

Yet I still remain edgy. Has our familiarity with God bred something verging on contempt? I don’t really mean contempt. Maybe “triviality” is a better word? Have we tried to make God so much a part of the ordinary that we have forgotten how totally OTHER, so spine-tinglingly OTHER, God really is?

SPECIOUS AWE?

Some people hate modern versions of the Bible and want only to hear the King James Version. They reckon the Scripture sound noble, and otherworly.

I think I hear what they are saying, even though I do not agree with their argument. The Bible is special and unique, God is wonderfully unique. What I do hear from them is a valid a protest against trivial chumminess; again the loss of “otherness” and the neglect of Mystery in worship.

Here then in a nutshell is my dilemma: How can we worship with faith that comes before God fearlessly, without either specious awe, or turning worship into a chummy, superficial gathering?

MOSES AND THE GLORY OF GOD

It’s time to engage again with Moses. He is up on the heights of Mt Sinai communing with God like a friend. He wishes he could see God face to face.

Yet God does in fact make Divine “goodness pass before” our eyes; it is all around us every day. This generosity of God is a witness to his true face, but it is not the actual countenance.

Also God does give Moses a name-: the same name given when Moses is called by God at the burning bush. It is the name that is a verb not a noun; we call it Yahweh, but its meaning expresses the total freedom of God to be and do whatever God wishes. We cannot define God, cannot assign limits. This is underlined in the passage today when we read: “I will be gracious to whom I chose to be gracious, and merciful to whom I wish.”

PLENTY OF AWE IN THE BIBLE

What about us?

Sorry folks, I don’t have the answer! I know,-preachers are expected to be the explainers, the guys that have the answers. Well, I haven’t! Far from it.

The question, like the glory of God, is far too much for me. Yet praise God, I am granted occasional moments of such joy-awe that leave my thirsty for more…. And then more……………..

SERMON 2: CAESAR AND GOD

Matthew 22: 15-22

It is said that barristers in cross examining a witness should never ask as question to which they do not know the answer. If that is so, then those enemies of Jesus, representing the chief priest and scribes of Jerusalem, should never have opened their mouths to question him.

THE SETTING

The setting is the tumultuous last week of Jesus’ mortal life. Palm Sunday has been and gone,

our Lord’s angry confrontation with the marketeers in the temple courts has heightened the hostility of the authorities, each day Jesus continues to openly teach in the great Temple enclosure.

Now a stormy confrontation in the temple courtyard set the stage for the week. He hated the misuse of temple precincts for a market. Jesus sent the money counters flying, set free the sacrificial birds and animals, and caused general chaos. The enemies of Jesus went on high alert.

This was no foolish bravado on Jesus’ part. The Lord had no illusions; he knew how the week would end. The shadow of his own cross fell heavily across his spirit. Yet his courage remained undaunted. He was not so pre-occupied with the awful fate awaiting him that he could not function well in the present moment. His mind remained keen his words were razor sharp.

THE SET UP.

His enemies tried to set Jesus up for a fall.

The priests and Pharisees had a council of war, framed some cunning questions, and sent some stooges to confront Jesus as he taught the people. Their aim was simple, to entrap Jesus. As far as they were concerned he was vermin; a rat to be trapped and quickly disposed of.

They planned to corner him. To trick him into saying something that would offend and alienate his many supporters among the common crowd of pilgrims.

His enemies introduced the question in a smooth but cynical way:

Rabbi, we of course know that you are sincere, and always teach the truth about God’s ways. Nor are you afraid of anyone, you don’t pander to men of high rank.

Notice how they are trying to set Jesus up? They give Jesus the respected title of rabbi. Those in the mob are listening to every word. Not realising the duplicity of these stooges, they nod in agreement at those slimy words about Jesus being sincere and always telling the truth without fear or favour.

These conniving men are thinking to themselves: “We’ve got you now, Galilean. You won’t get out of this one.” So they set their rat trap.

“Tell us therefore, Rabbi, what is your opinion on this matter: Taxes. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

It was indeed a most cunning question. Just the kind of dirty one we conjure up when we are try to justify our own hubris.

If Jesus had said: “No, is not right or just that we should be taxed by the Emperor of Rome” then a loud cheer would have gone up from the crowd, a shout loud enough to reverberate around the temple walls. Everybody hated the taxes. Even today, when it’s own our elected government that levies us, we still moan about it. How much more when it was the foreign power that was the tax master?

By rejecting the taxation, Jesus could have there and then, cemented his popularity with the ordinary people of the land for whom he had so much compassion. But at the same time, he would have placed on record words that would later have him condemned for treason in any Roman court.

But what if he took the other side? Jesus could have responded: “Taxes? You can’t have a peaceful and prosperous land without taxes. You can’t have roads and sewage systems, water supplies and public baths, law and order and even great temples like this one, without taxes. There will always be taxes.”

Such a reply would have kept him safe from Roman investigation, even given him added protection from the Romans. It would have spiked the attempt by his enemies to get him brought before a Roman court. But it would have caused dismay and maybe a riot in the temple courtyard. Taxes were a symbol of the Jew’s humiliation under Roman rule. The mood of the common people would have swung violently against Jesus.

JESUS ON THE FRONT FOOT

But that is not how it worked out. Jesus was well ahead of them.

At the start of this sermon I mentioned that when cross examining a witness, junior counsel are advised by their experienced peers never to ask a question to which they do not know the answer. These critics of the good Lord had left themselves exposed. Not only did they not know the answer but they were arrogant enough to think there was no safe answer that the Galilean upstart to give. How wrong they were.

Jesus simply asked them: Show me the coins with which you pay taxes. One of them reached into his wallet and produced a denarius, a silver coin with the head of Emperor imprinted on it. He deliberately asked them: “Whose image is this?” Notice that word “image”. It was strictly forbidden by the priests that any “image” should ever be brought into the temple precincts. Such an image was an affront to Yahweh! These self righteous men had broken their own law by having Roman money with them in the sacred place.

“Whose image is this?” They answered blandly: “Caesar’s, of course.” Maybe then, just after hearing themselves so speak, the implications would have hit home. They had publicly set themselves up. Embarrassment. 5 star embarrassment.

Jesus looked at the coin and gave his answer, loudly, for all to hear: “So, give the Caesar what is due to him. And give to God what is due to God.” Ouch! Their trap had failed. In fact (as can happen when one sets a rat trap) their own fingers had got caught in it.

CHURCH AND STATE?

Was Jesus merely getting himself of the hook? Or was there more involved? Some theologians have made this passage their Biblical justification for an absolute separation of church and state. They claim that God gives the government their realm of authority- the secular affairs of society. And God gives the church their realm of affairs- the spiritual side of things.

Sometimes we hear outraged politicians quote this text when they are taking umbrage at criticism by a church council or dignitary. As I heard on the radio a while back: “I don’t interfere with your sphere of authority. Keep your nose out of mine.”

A separation of church and state? To what degree that separation is either desirable or possible, in a complex question. But one thing is sure: It is a gross misinterpretation of Jesus to claim him as the authority for this doctrine.

IN THAT SITUATION?

Just place those words of Jesus back in the situation where they were spoken.

“Give the Caesar what is due to him. And give to God what is due to God.”

The Jews had never accepted that church and state were separate realms. The world was one whole, filled with the glory of God. Jewish kings were the servants of God. There was no division between sacred and secular.

What do you think would have popped into the minds of the people around Jesus as he spoke those words: “Give to Caesar what is due to Caesar?”

What is due to Caesar?

Two possible reactions to that question:

1/ If they had in general accepted being a part of the Roman Empire (as it seems the high priests had) they might have thought: “Fair enough. Roman rule is not all, bad. We have many things for which to be thankful.

Such people, therefore, might in fact have heard these words as a tacit approval by Jesus for some form of co-operation with the Roman authority.

2/ On the other hand , those who refused to accept the inevitability of Roman occupation, like the Zealot Party who were committed to the overthrow of Roman rule, would have thought: “What is due to Caesar? Rebellion, that is what is due to him! Let us give him what is coming to him!”

Zealots, therefore, may have heard these words a tacit approval by Jesus of their plans for a liberated Holy Land.

I do believe the words of Jesus are ambiguous. Intentionally so. He was not on about giving pat answers. Maybe he really wanted his followers to think deeply about their role in society, without giving them a hard and fast rule.

What is due to God?

The second part of our Lord’s answer is all embracing: “Give to God what is due to God. “ Nothing could be planer than this. “The earth is the lords and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.” All things belong to God.

Politics are always subservient to God. Caesar must never go unquestioned. Kings, Prime ministers and Presidents are answerable to God. Far from the church not speaking up about social and political issues, God actually sends prophets to confront the political arm of affairs, and call them back to the way of truth and love.

SOME CONCLUSIONS

Jesus did not advocate a sharp separation of church and state.

Nor do his words support a blind co-operation with the state.

Nor can we, in his name, opt for “doing your own thing” anarchy.

All things must answer to God. All things are due to God.

Reflecting back on this incident in the last days of Jesus life, two things strike me most;

Firstly, there is the wilful cunning, the utter prostitution of the brains which God has given us, whenever men and women seek to destroy the truth rather than face it. The priests and elders, and their stooges, were not open to God at all.

Secondly, I marvel at the level-headedness of Jesus when under pressure. He does not get so caught up in his approaching suffering (the most horrible of possible fates!) that he cannot still function as a loving, caring, truthful, thoughtful person. Under pressure he kept the faith and lived the love.

What next?

For ourselves, When others lose their cool, perhaps we could still think sanely and act lovingly. Centred in Christ, even in our worst moments, maybe we could then assist God to create something harmonious out of chaos, or good out of evil.

For myself I pray to God for a clear-cut allegiance. Yes, I vigorously pray to God, that in the peculiar pressures of my own declining years I may follow Christ well enough to turn physical and mental diminution into a growing spiritual love and trust. And maybe I might even enable God to make the process of my dying to be something worth living for.

So help me God!

THANKSGIVING

Your goodness, loving God is universal, and we glimpse the fringes of your glory passing by through all our days.

In the still moonlit night, in the roaring of the sea, in the grandeur of mountains and the delicacy of ferny glades, in the howl of the storm and the rippling of a stream; we see your glory passing by.