29 1Seeing then that our souls are a region open to His invisible entrance, let us make that place as beautiful as we may, to be a lodging fit for God. Else He will pass silently into some other home, where He judges that the builder’s hands have wrought something worthier. 2When we think to entertain kings we brighten and adorn our own houses. We despise no embellishment, but use all such freely and ungrudgingly, and make it our aim that their lodging shall have every delight and the honour withal that is their due. What house shall be prepared for God the King of kings, the Lord of all, who in His tender mercy and loving-kindness has deigned to visit created being and come down from the boundaries of heaven to the utmost ends of earth, to show His goodness to our race? 3Shall it be of stone or timber? Away with the thought, the very words are blasphemy. For though the whole earth should suddenly turn into gold, or something more precious than gold, though all that wealth should be expended by the builder’s skill on porches and porticos, on chambers, vestibules, and shrines, yet there would be no place where His feet could tread. One worthy house there is—the soul that is fitted to receive Him.