Paradise Will Be Better
Title page of Beckonings
Today's Devotional
Oh, forests, with your fresh coolness; glades, with tempered light, filled with winged creatures rejoicing in their life of a day; mountains, with grassy summits, majesty of peaks of snow; ineffable charm of the valley; blue lakes, entranced, looking up to and reflecting the sky— my God made you what you are.
It is God who will create the new earth. Our low prose effaces your poetry. The hymn which rises from your solitudes is overpowered by our jarring voices. Your flowers pass away; the flowers of Paradise will be sweeter still, and will never fade.
About the author and the source
The author of today’s thought was Madame De Gasparin [Catharine Valérie (Boissier), Comtesse de Gasparin, 1813–1894], author of The Near and Heavenly Horizons and other works. Lucy Larcom (1824–1893), the editor, was an author, educator, poet, and anthologist, most famous for her autobiography, A New England Girlhood.
Madame De Gasparin in Beckonings for Every Day: a calendar of thought, arr. by Lucy Larcom. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1887.