"We could not keep in mind that it was celestial fire we were looking at, — fire cool as the water-drops out of which it was born, and on which it reclined. It lay apparently upon the trees, diffused itself among them, from the valley to the crown of the ridge, as gently as the glory in the bush upon Horeb, when "the angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." It seemed like nothing less than a message to mortals from the internal sphere, — the robe of an angel, awful and gentle, come to bear a great truth to the dwellers in the valley. And it was, no doubt. It meant all that the discerning eye and reverent mind felt it to mean. That Arabian bush would have been vital with no such presence, perhaps, to the gaze of a different soul."
January 1, 1970