with himself,
peaceful, adoring, comparing the  of his  with the
 of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible
splendor of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God,
opening his  to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. 
At such moments, while he offered his  at the hour when
nocturnal flowers offer their perfume, illuminated like a lamp amid
the starry night, as he poured himself out in  in the midst
of the universal radiance of creation, he could not have told himself,
probably, what was passing in his ; he felt something take
its flight from him, and something descend into him.  Mysterious
exchange of the abysses of the  with the abysses of the universe!

He thought of the grandeur and presence of God; of the future eternity,
that strange mystery; of the eternity past, a mystery still
more strange; of all the infinities, which pierced their way into
all his senses, beneath his eyes; and, without seeking to comprehend
the incomprehensible, he gazed upon it.  He did not study God;
he was dazzled by him.  He considered those magnificent conjunctions
of atoms, which communicate aspects to matter, reveal forces by
verifying them, create individualities in unity, proportions in extent,
the innumerable in the infinite, and, through light, produce beauty.