Swallows flashed by hundreds out of the cliffs, and began their air-dance for the day; the jerboa hopped stealthily homeward on his stilts from his stolen meal in the monastery garden; the brown sand-lizards underneath the stones opened one eyelid each, and having satisfied themselves that it was day, dragged their bloated bodies and whip-like tails out into the most burning patch of gravel which they could find, and nestling together as a further protection against cold, fell fast asleep again; the buzzard, who considered himself lord of the valley, awoke with a long querulous bark, and rising aloft in two or three vast rings, to stretch himself after his night's sleep, bung motionless, watching every lark which chirruped on the cliffs; while from the far-off Nile below, the awakening croak of pelicans, the clang of geese, the whistle of the godwit and curlew, came ringing up the windings of the glen; and last of all the voices of the monks rose chanting a morning hymn to some wild Eastern air; and a new day had begun in Seetis, like those which went before, and those which were to follow after, week after week, year after year, of toil and prayer as quiet as its sleep.
'What does that teach thee, Aufugus, my friend ?' Arsenius was silent.
'To me it teaches this: that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

That in His presence is life, and fulness of joy for evermore.

That He is the giver, who delights in His own bounty; the lover, whose mercy is over all His works--and why not over thee, too, O thou of little faith?
Look at those thousand birds--and without our Father not one of them shall fall to the ground: and art thou not of more value than many sparrows, thou for whom God sent His Son to die ?....

Ah, my friend, we must look out and around to see what God is like.

It is when we persist in turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own imperfections, that we learn to make a God after our own image, and fancy that our own darkness and hardness of heart are the patterns of His light and love.' 'Thou speakest rather as a philosopher than as a penitent Catholic.
For me, I feel that I want to look more, and not less, inward.