Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1858-03-16

inanlmate, DfcomeS lnSJlcL WIN meaning
"a correspondents in Divine language
a representative of Divine ideal If we
could but learn this Divine alphabet, we
could indeed find "Books in running
brooks, sermons in stones, and good in
everything"
In the very nature Of things, this must
be 30. We look upon the works of the
great masters---the embodiments of hui
man genius In works OF art-and the
marble and the canvas reveal to US in out
ward forms the mental creations Of their
authors. Every statue and every paint
ing existed in the mind of the artist as
perfect mental conception before it was
brought forth to external view. He did
but give to that conception permanent
existence to our senses by investing it
with material body, which stands out in
natural lineaments the true correspondent
Of that conception. Every line, and
curve, and feature, and shade, and color
every part and every combination has a
meaning. 1t becomes truly written
volume. Its letters may, indeed, be all
hyerogliphics. We may not understand
the alphabet and'to us it may be an un-
known language. But stillits significance
remains. The wholly uncultivated would
discover none of its higher beauties
nothing of its spiritual teachings-would
only notice its form, and size, and color
dead, cold image, without life or soul
and would pass it by as thing of nc
value. Othersmight gather at first view,
something more than these, and, return
| ing to it again and again, would find new
revelations the more they studied it, but
could never grasp the fullness of its i'm
port; while to those who understood the
language-whose culture and genius ap
proximated to those Of the artist
would speak in their native tongue, and
stand revealed in all its living, glowing
spirituality, ga thing of beauty and JOY
forevei."
So, too, with the works of the Divine
Artist-of "our Father who is in Heav
en-" Every particular thing in the Uni
verse-t the greatest and the least--tht
largest sun that rolls forever IN incon
ceivable circles through illimitable space
and the smallest atom that floats in hi:
beams-the giant cedar that has bravet
the storms Of hundred centuries, ane
the smallest foweret that springs from tn
moss al its root--the larges. animal ant
the smallest animalculi--the eagle and the
insect--each end every single thing is th
outbirth, the embodiment, the ultimatiol
in material form of a Divine idea-is
letter in Divine alphabet-a natural sym
boil, representative of Divine thought.
What gallery of art is here! AnC
our Heavenly Father has sculptured ant
lpainted them all! They embody the full
ness of His conreptions-are the source
and fountain from which the light of hu
man genius has its life; and yet, will
stolid hearts and stupid stare, we stall
amid its innumerable forms of matches
perfection, unconscious Cf the celestia
glorles they were given to reveal, like tn
wandering Arab who feeds his camel il
the deserted halls of Niniveh or Thebes
nor once suspects that the broken column
surrounding him, and the rubbish o.
which he sits, contain their forgotten his
tories sculptured in the pictured hyero
glipbs which to him have no significance
We see, indeed, the outward forms Of nat
ural things-the Autographed pages c
this grand volume-this world in whic
we live-this elder Scripture, in which
written the wondrous story of our Father
love, and the inexhaustible revelations c
his infinite wisdom, culptured and painte
in hyerogliphs, composed of lakes an
oceans, and running streams-of noun
tains and valleys of rocks and sand
deserts-of trees, and shrubs, and flow
ers, and fruits-of singing birds an
luSeCbb--Ol All Will WHlCi w
are surrounded, and part of which we are
but, like the Arab, we understand it no
We make its letters toys, without CUES
at their significance, ard gathering it
broken sentences into heaps, we call ther
= wealth, without the slightest perceptio
of their true, celestial value But is ther
not another Champolion who has dec
phered these natural hyerogliphics, an
translated for us the Spiritual but fol
gotten histories they teach? and if SO, VIII
is he, and what is that history?
If we should write another Sunda
letter-a0hich ace qCW n0t--we should a.
tempt to answer these questions. An
now, good readers, with this promise
please accept what is agreeable to you, an
excuse what is not so in this sermonis