Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1872-06-22
The lesson Of the SkY.


general people know about the sky.
II 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 teaching him, than in any
other Of her works, and it is lust the
part in which we least attendto her.
There are not many other works in
which some more material or essen
tlal purpose han the mere pleasing
OF man is not answered by every part
OF their organization; but every es-
sentlal purpose of the sky might, SC
lar as we know, be answered, if once
IN three days or thereabout a great
ugly black rain-cloud were brought
mp over the blue, and everything
well watered, and so all lett blue
aga}n till next time, with perhaps a
tim Of morning or evening mist OF
dew. And instead of this there is
not a moment Of any day of our lives
when nature is not producing scene
alter scene, picture after picture, glo-
ny after glory, and working still up
Oh such exquisite AID constant prin-
clples of the most perfect beauty,
that it Is quite certain that it is all
done for us, and intended for our
perpetual pleasure. And every man,
wherever placed, however far from
other sources of interest or OF beau
ty, has this doing for him constant
ly. The modest scenes of the earth
can be seen and known by but few;
it is not intended that man should
live always in the midst Of them, he
INJURIES them by his presence, he
ceases to feel them if he be always
with them; but the sky is for all;
bright as it is, it is not too "bright
aud good for human natures daily
tood;' it is fitted in all it's functions
for the perpetual comfort and exalt-
ing of the heart, for the soothing
and purifying it from its dross and
dust, Sometimes gentle, sometimes
capricious, sometimes awful, never
TIE same for two moments together;
almost human in it's passions, almost
spiritual in its tenderness, almost
Nylne IN its iNfnity, its appeal to
tintc is immortal in use is as dis
or of bits ministry of chastisement
essential. ng to what is mortal is
to it, we neyera yet we never attend
thought, but as TIE IT a subject OF
animal sensations, we go 40 with our
by which it speaks to US s0k upon all
y than to brutes, upon ali Gear GEAR
pears witness of the intention oIiIa
supreme, that we are to receive
more from the covering vault than
the light and the dew which we share
with the weed and the worm, only
as a succession of meaningless and
monotonous accidents too common
INC TOO vain to be worthy of a mo-
lneht OF watchtulne3s, or a glance of
admiration. If in our moments of
utter ldleness and insipidity, we turn
TO the sky as a last resource, which
o. Its phenomena do we speak Of?
one says it has been wet, and asn,
:; 2fI 7 It has been windy, 9Rd6;fr
whole chatter "'ck VINO, among the
OF the fost oRhg crowd, can tell me
the :ms and the precipices, of
chain of tall white mountains
thai girded the horizon at noon yes
terday? Who saw the narrow sun
beam that came out of the south and
slnote upon their SUBMITS until they
melted and moldered away in a dust
of blue rain? Who saw the dance of
the dead clouds when the sun light
left them last night, and the west
wind blew them before it like with
cred leaves? All has passed uDre-
GREETED as unseen; or if the apathy
De ever shaken off, even for an in
slant, it is only by what is cross or
what is extraordinary; and yet it is
not in the broad and fierce manifes-
tations of the elemental energies,
not in the clash of the hail nor the
drift Of the whirlwind, that the high
est characters of the sublime are de-
yeloped. God is not in the earth
quake, nor in the fire, but in the still,
small voice. They arebut the blunt,
low faculties of our nature which
can only be addressed through lamp
black and lightning. 1t is in quiet
and subdued passages of unobtrusiye
majesty, the deep, and the calH, and
tho perpetual-that which must be
sought ere it is aeon, and loved ore
it is understood, things which the
angels work out for us daily, and
yet very externally, which are never
wanting, and never repeated, which
/ to be found always, yet each
found but once; it is through these
that the lesson of devotion is chiefly
taught, and the blessing of beauty
given.-RuSkin.