[1] This will lead us to submit with more temper and mildness
to whatever means are prescribed for our recovery, and also
to wait their event with less querulous eagerness than if
we corroded our thoughts by the pangs we endure or by the
earthly succours whereby we hope to escape or lessen them.
There is something soothing as well as sublime in the
contemplation of greatness and power. We feel it when we
gaze on the great works of Nature. He whose heart expiates
in the prospect of the ocean or of the starry heaven is for
a time insensible to his own resentments or misfortune, and
is identified, as it were, with the glorious and tranquil
scene before him. One of the principal joys of heaven, we
are told, is the delight of gazing upon God; and even in
this state of mortal darkness and misery, if we can for a
time so forsake the thoughts of earthly things as to call
up to our mind whatever images of greatness, and power, and
perfection the Scriptures have revealed to us concerning
Him, our heart will be filled as by necessity with love and
admiration for an object so glorious, and our resignation
to His decree will become a matter, not only of necessity,
but in some respects of choice. . . . Most unreasonable is
their conduct who, in the beginning of sickness, drive away
all serious thoughts from the soul, through a fear of
injuring the body. Even if this were necessarily the case,
the risk is so far less in dying soon than in dying
unprepared, that the former danger should be cheerfully
encountered rather than incur the possibility of the
latter. But the cases of sickness are very few in which, at
the beginning of a disorder, such religious considerations
can do our bodily health any harm. On the contrary, that
awe and tranquillity of soul which are induced by them may
in many cases be of real advantage.--_Heber._