I. A Christmas Lecture

My dear friends, there is something in the depths of man's heart that speaks of nothing else than of what is purely human and dissolves all differences. And it is just within these depths that we find the Christ And there is a wisdom which extends far beyond all that can be discovered concerning single spheres of world existence, a wisdom that is able to grasp the world in its unity, even in space and time. And this again is the star-wisdom that leads to Christ We need to have again in a new form that which led on the one hand the shepherds of the field, and on the other hand the Magi of the East to find the way to Christ In other words we need to deepen our external perception of nature through what the heart can develop as spiritual perception of nature. We must learn once again out of the piety of the human heart to approach all that to which in modern times the microscope, telescope, roentgen-rays apparatus and such instruments are applied. Then will the growing plant, the rushing stream, the murmuring spring, the lightning and thunder from the clouds, not merely speak to us in an indifferent way. There will speak to us from the flowers of the field, from the lightning and thunder of the clouds, from the shining stars and the radiant sun, there will, as it were, stream into our eyes and into our hearts, as the result of all our observation of nature, words that proclaim nothing else than this: “The divine is revealed in the heights of heaven, and peace shall be among men upon earth who are of good will.” The time must come when our observation of nature sets itself free from the dry, prosaic, non-human method pursued in the laboratories and clinics of today. The time must come when our observation of nature must be irradiated by such life so that the life which can no longer exist in the way it did for the shepherds of Bethlehem will nevertheless be able to speak to us through the voices of the plants and animals, from stars and springs and rivers. For the whole of nature utters what was uttered by the Angel: “The Divine is revealed in the heavenly heights and there can be peace among men on Earth who desire to be of good will”