SECT.  XCII.  A Prayer to God.

O my God, if so many men do not discover Thee in this great spectacle Thou givest them of all Nature, it is not because Thou art far from any of us.  Every one of us feels Thee, as it were, with his hand; but the senses, and the passions they raise, take up all the attention of our minds.  Thus, O Lord, Thy light shines in darkness; but darkness is so thick and gloomy that it does not admit the beams of Thy light.  Thou appearest everywhere; and everywhere unattentive mortals neglect to perceive Thee.  All Nature speaks of Thee and resounds with Thy holy name; but she speaks to deaf men, whose deafness proceeds from the noise and clutter they make to stun themselves.  Thou art near and within them; but they are fugitive, and wandering, as it were, out of themselves.  They would find Thee, O Sweet Light, O Eternal Beauty, ever old and ever young, O Fountain of Chaste Delights, O Pure and Happy Life of all who live truly, should they look for Thee within themselves.  But the impious lose Thee only by losing themselves.  Alas! Thy very gifts, which should show them the hand from whence they flow, amuse them to such a degree as to hinder them from perceiving it.  They live by Thee, and yet they live without thinking on Thee; or, rather, they die by the Fountain of Life for want of quenching their drought in that vivifying stream; for what greater death can there be than not to know Thee, O Lord?  They fall asleep in Thy soft and paternal bosom, and, full of the deceitful dreams by which they are tossed in their sleep, they are insensible of the powerful hand that supports them.  If Thou wert a barren, impotent, and inanimate body, like a flower that fades away, a river that runs, a house that decays and falls to ruin, a picture that is but a collection of colours to strike the imagination, or a useless metal that glisters—they would perceive Thee, and fondly ascribe to Thee the power of giving them some pleasure, although in reality pleasure cannot proceed from inanimate beings, which are themselves void and incapable of it, but only from Thee alone, the true spring of all joy.  If therefore Thou wert but a lumpish, frail, and inanimate being, a mass without any virtue or power, a shadow of a being, Thy vain fantastic nature would busy their vanity, and be a proper object to entertain their mean and brutish thoughts.  But because Thou art too intimately within them, and they never at home, Thou art to them an unknown God; for while they rove and wander abroad, the intimate part of themselves is most remote from their sight.  The order and beauty Thou scatterest over the face of Thy creatures are like a glaring light that hides Thee from and dazzles their sore eyes.  Thus the very light that should light them strikes them blind; and the rays of the sun themselves hinder them to see it.  In fine, because Thou art too elevated and too pure a truth to affect gross senses, men who are become like beasts cannot conceive Thee, though man has daily convincing instances of wisdom and virtue without the testimony of any of his senses; for those virtues have neither sound, colour, odour, taste, figure, nor any sensible quality.  Why then, O my God, do men call Thy existence, wisdom, and power more in question than they do those other things most real and manifest, the truth of which they suppose as certain, in all the serious affairs of life, and which nevertheless, as well as Thou, escape our feeble senses?  O misery!  O dismal night that surrounds the children of Adam!  O monstrous stupidity!  O confusion of the whole man!  Man has eyes only to see shadows, and truth appears a phantom to him.  What is nothing, is all; and what is all, is nothing to him.  What do I behold in all Nature?  God.  God everywhere, and still God alone.  When I think, O Lord, that all being is in Thee, Thou exhaustest and swallowest up, O Abyss of Truth, all my thoughts.  I know not what becomes of me.  Whatever is not Thou, disappears; and scarce so much of myself remains wherewithal to find myself again.  Who sees Thee not, never saw anything; and who is not sensible of Thee, never was sensible of anything.  He is as if he were not.  His whole life is but a dream.  Arise, O Lord, arise.  Let Thy enemies melt like wax and vanish like smoke before Thy face.  How unhappy is the impious soul who, far from Thee, is without God, without hope, without eternal comfort!  How happy he who searches, sighs, and thirsts after Thee!  But fully happy he on whom are reflected the beams of Thy countenance, whose tears Thy hand has wiped off, and whose desires Thy love has already completed.  When will that time be, O Lord?  O Fair Day, without either cloud or end, of which Thyself shalt be the sun, and wherein Thou shalt run through my soul like a torrent of delight?  Upon this pleasing hope my bones shiver, and cry out:—“Who is like Thee, O Lord?  My heart melts and my flesh faints, O God of my soul, and my eternal wealth.”