I have seen at midnight the gleaming headlight of a giant
locomotive, rushing onward through the darkness, heedless
of danger and uncertainty, and I have thought the spectacle
grand. I have seen the light come over the eastern hills in
glory, driving the lazy darkness, like mist before a sea-born
gale, till leaf and tree and blade of grass sparkled as myriad
diamonds in the morning rays, and I have thought that it was
grand. I have seen the lightning leap at midnight athwart the
storm-swept sky, shivering over chaotic clouds, ’mid howling
winds, till cloud and darkness and the shadow-haunted earth
flashed into midday splendor, and I have known that it was
grand. But the grandest thing, next to the radiance that
flows from the Almighty’s throne, is the light of a noble
and beautiful life, shining in benediction upon the destines
of men, and finding its home in the bosom of the everlasting
God.--JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES.
(1790)