Passing from a state of keenest grief I came to one of quiet reconcilement—-to the profound conviction that, living or dying, God will take care of us. God seemed very near to me in that wood; the beauty of it all trembled with His grace; the music held His voice. I saw there both life and death—-in the green leaves and the brown, in the standing trees and in the fallen. If one is honest with himself when he asks the question, What is it that perishes? he will be obliged to answer, Everything that the eye sees. In the forest, amid those things that God provided, I came to understand that if we are to hold anything—-and in times of sorrow we must have something to which we can cling—it must be to the unseen. For the strength that is permanent, we have to lean on visions; for immortal hope, we have to trust, not the things that we perceive but those invisible things that our spirits affirms.
–Archibald Rutledge, Life’s Extras (hat tip: DF)