The First Temple, the sages taught, held five tokens of God's nearness that the Second Temple lacked: the Ark and its cover, the sacred fire that came down from heaven, the Shekhinah itself, the Holy Spirit of prophecy, and the Urim v'Tumim through which the high priest inquired of God.
So how, then, could the prophet Haggai stand in the rebuilt courtyards and declare, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former" (Haggai 2:9)? It is a question worth asking honestly.
Perhaps the answer is this. The visible signs — the pillar of cloud, the fire on the altar, the oracle stones — were themselves only assurances, only symbols pointing toward a Presence they could never contain. When they were taken away, Israel was left to seek the eternal reality directly, without the adumbration. A house without the outward glory can, in its waiting and its study, come closer to the thing itself than a house full of portents.
The Second Temple's greater glory, the sages hint, is the greatness of a people learning to find God without needing a fire to prove He is there.
(From the 1901 Hebraic Literature anthology, on the tradition of the five missing tokens, Yoma 21b.)