But God presents to him also a security of salvation and of life, of progress and of joy. He finds in God a subject of endless contemplation, and a source from which he derives all things that are necessary for this world and for a world to come. God is his occupation. The will of God is his delight. The universe presents itself to him as the works of God, history as the development of a Divine thought, man as the shadow or image of God, religion as the relation between God and man, heaven as the goal of the knowledge and love which relate God to man.
If he is a thinker, like Spinoza, all things are seen in God. If he is a poet, God Himself appears the best poet, and the real is His song. If he is a man of science, he studies everything in nature, as thinking the thoughts of God after Him.
But if he is a plain man, innocent of abstract thought, none the less his business and his pleasure, his family and his friends, all present themselves as material furnished by God in which he is to work out the Divine will, and win the Divine approval. Nothing is dissociated from God, whom he recognises everywhere, and at all times. But as God who is thus all in all to him is Light and Life and Love, the problem of his own and of the world's existence is implicitly solved for him. God is all he wants, more than all in God he finds. Every question is brought up into the presence of God; in His light he sees light. Death disappears; for God is seen, the possessor of immortality, imparting life to him who possesses God. And as God is absolute love, there can be no question that all things are working together for good to those who love Him.
This sovereign presence and power of the Divine will make earthly possessions and station and success quite indifferent. They do not lose their value; but they find their value only in relation to God and His will, so that, if only a man's ways please God, and he lives in the reconciliation and obedience to the will of God, he must be sure that he has as much earthly property, as good a station, and as great a degree of success, as God thinks good for him. If all things seem taken from him, he reflects, God is my portion, and with Him I have all things. And if all things are his, he does not feel that he possesses any more than God; the things are temporary appearances within the bounds of his inheritance, which is God; they lie latent there always, appearing or disappearing as the wisdom and love of God determine.