Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-01-09

The SKY.-lt is a strange thing how little, in
general, people know about the sky. 1t is the
part Of creation in which nature has done more
for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole
and evident purpose of talking to him, and teach
ing him, than in any other of her works and it
is just the part in which we least attend to her.
The noble scenes of earth can be seen and known
but by few it is not intended that man should
always live in the midst Of them he Injuries them
by his presence--he ceases to feel them if he al.
ways be with them. The sky is for all bright as
it is, it is not too bright nor good for human
natures daily fcod"; it is fitted ia all its functions
for perpetual comfort and exalting Of the heart,
soothing and purifying it from iross and dust.
Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious. some.
times awful-nevert the same for two moments to.
gether-almost human in its passions, almost
spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its
infnity its appeal to what is immoral in us is
as distinct as Its mini::1y of ehastisement or Of
blessing TO what is mortal and essential. And yet
we never attend 60 it, we never make it q subject
Of thought, but it has to do with our animal
sensation. We look upon all by which it speaks
to us, more clearly than to brutes, upon all which
bears witness to the intention of the Supreme
that wo are to receive more from the covering
vault than the light and the dew that we shars
with the weed and the worm, only as a succession
of meaningless and monotonous accident, too com
mon and to vain to be worthy of a moment u
watchfulness or a glance of admiration.
III, In our moments OF ldleness and lnslpldlty
we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of it
phenomena do we speak of? One says it has beer
wet, and another is has been windy. and anothe
it has been warm. Who, among the whole chat
tering crowd, can tell Inc of the forms and preci
pices Of the chain of tall white mountaint OF
the horizon at noon yesterday Who saw tn
narrow sunbeams that came out of the south, an
smote upon the submits until they melted an
mouldered away in a dust Of blue rain
Who saw the dance Of the dead clouds whe
the sunlight left them last night, and tho wec
wind blew them before it like withered leaves
All has passed ungreeted or unseen or, if tn
apathy be ever shaken off. even for an instant, it
only by what is extraordinary. And yet it is nc
in the broad and fierce demonstrations of the ell
mental energies, not III the clash of hail, nc
the draft of whirlwind, that the highest chara,
ter of the sublime are developed. God is not a
ways so eloquent in the earthquake, nor in sh
fire, as in "the still, small voice" They arc bt
the blunt and the low faculties of our natur
which can only be addressed through ~lamp-blac
and lightning. 1t is in quiet and subdued pass
ges of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, the cain
and the perpetual-that which must be sought e.
it is seen, and loved ere it is understood-thin,
which the angels work out for us daily. and y
vary eternally, which are never wanting, new
repeated, which are to be found always, yet eal
found but once. 1t is through these that Il
lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and ii
blessing OF besuty is giyen.-Joha Ruskin.