"The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." St. Luke xvii. 21.
(From the Gospel for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost.)
A few years ago, and the people of California were a quiet, agricultural and trading people, by which they procured for themselves the three great wants of life; viz., shelter, clothing and food. They were content with as much as this, for they were unconscious that underneath their very feet, as they were working their farms and gardens, there lay that immense treasure of gold which has since been brought to this city. By chance a lucky spade turned over a clod of earth and stone, on which a yellowish tinge was noticed. { 235} It was found to be gold. The report soon found its way next door, and then about the neighborhood, and so went rapidly through the country. The cabbages and potatoes, the peas and beans, which till now had been the pride of the cottage, were pulled up without ceremony and thrown aside, in the eager search that was everywhere being made for gold. The news came over to us, and I dare say you remember well the excitement created by it here. The great tide of commerce was turned toward San Francisco, and such was the haste of our people to get there, that a crowd was daily seen pressing around the offices of the various packet and steamship lines, eager to secure an early passage.
We, my dear brethren, are living on the surface of life, with our cabbages and beans, very much as those Californians were, and all the while within our souls there is a mine of untold riches, of which we seem to be quite unconscious. We are leading a grovelling life, when we might be living an angelic one. Our condition differs as much from what it might be as the state of the caterpillar differs from that of the butterfly. { 236} They are the same creature, yet how different! The caterpillar crawls upon the ground; it feeds upon roots and leaves, and one is tempted to put his foot upon it as he passes by. The butterfly is a light airy thing on beautiful wings. It feeds upon honey which it gathers from the flower gardens, and is the admiration of every one. But before the caterpillar can become a butterfly it must build for itself a little house of silk. It must enclose itself there, and in proportion as it dies to itself, it lives again in the butterfly. My brethren, this house is your soul. There, with God, is your true life. Would that I could make you realize this. Would that I could realize it myself. Well, in order to do something toward it, I will this morning show you under what beautiful images Holy Scripture describes the beauty of a soul that is in union with God. I will name two great advantages of this union; and finally, I will tell you the conditions on which God offers it to you.