Сад во время зимы

In 1829 I spent the winter in the Ploshchanskaya Hermitage 100. And to this day, there, in the garden, stands the solitary wooden cell in which I lived with my friend. In calm weather, on sunny, clear days, I would go out onto the porch, sit on a bench, and look at the vast garden. His nakedness was covered with a blanket of snow; Everything around is quiet, a kind of dead and majestic peace. I began to like this spectacle: thoughtful gazes involuntarily directed, riveted on it, as if looking for a secret in it. One day I was sitting and looking intently at the garden. Suddenly the veil fell from the eyes of my soul: the book of nature was opened before them. This is a book given to the primordial Adam to read, a book containing the words of the Spirit, like Divine Scripture. What teaching did I read in the garden? – The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, a strong doctrine, a teaching depicting an action similar to the resurrection. If we were not accustomed to seeing the revival of nature in spring, it would seem to us quite wonderful, incredible. We are not surprised by habit; Seeing a miracle, it’s as if we no longer see it! I look at the naked branches of the trees, and they convincingly tell me in their mysterious language: “We will come to life, we will be covered with leaves, we will be fragrant, we will be decorated with flowers and fruits: will the dry bones of men really not come to life during their spring?” They will come to life and take on flesh; in a new form they will enter a new life and a new world. Just as trees that could not withstand the severity of the frost, that have lost their vital sap, are cut down at the onset of spring and taken out of the garden for fuel, so sinners who have lost their life - God, will be gathered on the last day of this age, in the beginning of the future eternal day, and thrown into unquenchable fire. If it were possible to find a person who would not know the transformations produced by the changes of the seasons; If you were to bring this wanderer into the garden, majestically resting in the sleep of death during winter, show him the naked trees and tell him about the luxury in which they will be clothed in the spring, then, instead of answering, he would look at you and smile - your words would seem like such an impossible fable to him! Likewise, the resurrection of the dead seems incredible to the wise, wandering in the darkness of earthly wisdom, who do not know that God is omnipotent, that His manifold wisdom can be contemplated, but not comprehended by the mind of creatures. Everything is possible for God: there are no miracles for Him. Man's thinking is weak: what we are not used to seeing seems to us an impossible thing, an incredible miracle. The works of God, which we constantly and now indifferently look at, are wondrous works, great miracles, incomprehensible. And every year nature repeats before the eyes of all mankind the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, depicting it with a representative, mysterious action! 1843, Sergius Hermitage. This communal monastery is located in the Oryol diocese, between the cities of Sevsk and Dmitrovsk, 40 miles from each. You might be interested in: