To be able to love material things, to clothe them with tender grace, and yet not be attached to them, this is a great service. Providence expects that we should make this world our own, and not lie in it as though it were a rented tenement. We can only make it our own through some service, and that service is to lend it love and beauty from our soul. Your own experience shows you the difference between the beautiful, the tender, the hospitable, and the mechanically neat and monotonously useful. Gross utility kills beauty. We now have all over the world huge productions of things, huge organizations, huge administrations of empire–all obstructing the path of life. Civilization is waiting for a great consummation, for an expression of its soul in beauty. This must be your contribution to the world.
The law of "thanksgiving" and gratitude is the divine law of multiplication. It is the law of bringing-forth, of creation, of increase. As the heavenly song of the universe pours into our beings in its complete fullness, we come to realize the purpose and the power of such infinite harmony. It is a song of love and devotion, of praise and exaltation, of gratitude and thanks that can clothe one in complete glory. It is the celestial symphony of the universe. It is the "new song" that is not learned in words, but which is felt and released from the very center of the soul. It is divine, perfected love, developed from within by gratitude.