The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1859-06-08
PATIENCE.
The world was not made in minute"

If there be one attribute of the Deity
which astonishes me more than another,
it is the attribute of patience. The Great
Soul that sits on the throne of the uni
verse is not, never was, and never will be,
in a hurry. In the realm of nature, ev-
cry thing has been wrought out in the au-
gust consciousness of infinite leisure; and |
bless God for that geology which gives
me key to the patience in which the
creative process was effected. Man has
but brief history. A line of nineteen
old men, centenarians, would, if they were
to join hands, clasp the hand of Christ !;
and the sixtieth OF such line would tell
us that his name is Adam, and that he
does not know who his mother was. Yet
I this wonderful earth, unquest;onably con-
| structed with reference to the accommo
dation of our race, was begun so long ago
| that none but fools undertake to reckon
its age by the measurement of years.
All hat baths of.ire and floods of water;
what earthquakes, eruptions, upheavals
and storms; what rise and fall of vegeta-
BILE and animal dispense ions; what melt
ing and moulding and combining of ele-
ments, have been patiently gone through
with, to fit up this dwelling place of man !!
When look back upon the misty surface
of the dimly retiring ages-the smoking
track over which the train of creative
change has swept-it fades until the sky
Of the past eternity shuts down upon the
vision; and | only know that far beyond
that point-ininitely far--that train com
menced its progress, and that, even then,
God only opened his hand to give flight
to thought that He had held imprisoned
from eternity
But the old rocks tell us that there was
time when animal life began-rude and
rudimcntary; typical and prophetic the
biologists say. We may call it typical
and pr, phetic, if we choose; and in a
sense, it undoubtedly is so. But, to me,
all these forms Of animal life are simply
patient studies of man. There seem to be
parts of man in everything that went be-
fore him. AS l find in the. studio of the
artist who has completed a great picture,
studies of heads and hands, and limbs and
scenes which the picture embodies- con
venient prisons of 1eeting ideas; expert
rhents in composition and effact-so do |
| find in the records of pre- Adamic life on
| Iy succession of studies having reference
to the great picture of humanity. Gcd
was in no haste to get the world ready
for man, and in no haste to make him.
TIER was coal to lay up i'll exhaustIess
storehouses. There were continents to be
! upheayed, seas to chain, river-channels to
carve. There WAS an infinite variety of
germs to be invented and made in heav-
en-, soil to be prepared for their re' ep-
ton on the ea:th's surface, and broad
cast sowing to be effected. What infinite
detail! What intimate arrangement OF
special laws that should not clash with
oae another! How could the Creator
wait so long to see the being for whom
all this painstaking preparation was IL
progress?
Well, when the process was at last
complete when the marveilously beau,
tiful but diminutive form of Adam walk
ed oat of Gods thought into the morning
sunlight of walked through flow
ers and odors, and among animals that
licked bis hand and gamboled around Ii n,
unslared; when the impaIpabIe forms Of
angels were thick around him in an at
nosphere uneasy with it's burden of vital
ity, how did the Creator regard him-the
object of all this patient working anc
waiting? 1t was what we should call g;
great success" 1t was every popular
with the observing host. The morning
stars sang together, and all the sons 0
God shouted for joy; but God did no
even say that it was "vcry good" III
only ''saw" that it was 50. No ruffle 0
exultation swept over the bosom of tina
sublime patience, for even then be hac
only made beginning! He bad only
made place for his creatures to dwell IN
Before Him stretched almost infinite eye
les of duration. In the far perspective
He saw nations rise and sink, civilizations
blossom and decay, the advent and mis-
sion of Jesus, the struggles of good ane
evil, of light and darkness, of truth anC
error; and on the remote pinnacle o. des
tiny, family rising to his eye in the eter
nifty before him, the blazing windows anc
the white pillars and spires of the Temps
of Consumation
Some people wonder how God cal
bear as be does with human frailty An,
! wiclzedness. 10 effect, they ask Why Il