Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-08-19
SUNDAY READING.

~~~~ 49,
say to his old congregationers, Go to your
Bible. One may, if he wall but take the
steps toward the right experience, learn how
easy it is to fall into the restful and rustful
ways of incidence and disuetude. Your pen
which takes no fallow lying vacations, it writes
the best sermons as well SIS the best newspa
per matter. What the mind is used to favors
the humor and the fancy and the aptness Of
work. The head must be busted in order
that the hands may be nimble of execution.
It is amazing hard work for the brain to try
to think when its more native tendency is
toward somnolency and dreamland And so
the question ar0es, Is 8 vacation for the body
helpful thing to the mind2 Is not the gain
Of muscle and Drawn and the blood factors
something of a swapping of the laboratory of
ideas2 Are there not memorable conditions OF
the brain for itself, and of the body for itself
which are difficult of harmonizing? And may
not the betterment Of the one result in the
impoverishment of the other IF, as Bryant
tells US, "The Groves were Gods first tenn
pies, perhaps the best preaching has been
satisfactory or satisfying fashion, S'srely the
trees and their feathered occupants the
leaves and their surprising structure: the
wild flowers and their unbounded healthful-
ness and hardihood and beauty; the myriad
shapes of symmetry taken on by the lesser
objects of the wood, the earth, the streams,
the waves, the clouds and the ali peryading
light of SIN and moon and stars, surely these
reassert the Masters words that there are
Books in the running brooks, sermons in
stones and good in everything. Who shall
preach to me 4 grander sermon than | see in
the contemplation OF yon towering pine,
lifting its own not insignificant forest OF
arms and bark and lea fage far into the dan
gerous ar7 What, upon this earth, is built
more subliinely than this appointing fir, its
still green and vigorous top standing where
the many hundreds Of years OF its parent. Il
trunk and deep digged roots have lifted it 7
1t stands beside blade Of grass, itself i rug
ged, as the tenderer plant is soft and delicate
miracle of the ever-fruitful soil. The beauty
of the wild columbine is not more (nor less)
and stateliness of the sturdier plant whose |
arms are not yet weary with their battle with |
the winds. Certainly no man ever builded |
such temple as this which stands upon the |
mountain-side certainly no choir chaunts |
music more melodiously than this brook ; |
certainly no mans hand has ever cultivated |
and cherished any conception more lovely |
and curious aud beautiful than this wild !
pansy or that brilliant thistle growing by
a wind-sheltering stump. Nay, who shall
tell the wonders of the moss or describe in
fitting terms the marvellous texture Of the
silken water weeds which tounce and
frill the bed of this sinuous brook
as it winds its CLASSY way through its sedgy
rneadows3 Even the decay OF old grown
logs and tree trunks is full of beauty 70 the
careful observer And mother Naturo never
makes an ungraceful line The very fungi,
the very warts and Jumps and distortions of
the trees and the rocks are as soft OF shading,
- delicate OF tint and true 10 Hogarth's
Line OF Beauty and Grace as the purest lilly
o. the lithest spray. Not any of these handl- :
HOIhS Vi >>atuIS NC oC> pISGh LII SfCll
. decaying twig; not even the smallest pebble;
not even the commonest weed. As to the g
lights and the shadows, are they not infinite q
N their variety, their intricacy, their mint
able splendor and their Understandable gloom t
Ii IN this sense We are TO regard the woods as T
Gods first temples, where shall we 90 amiss a
or the Word which speaketh by signs and to- v
Gems and constant manfesting! And if, out Il
If this universal temple, never still for the Il
urging anthem with which all its aisles and '
ecesses are alive, we come hushed into a new t
nd thoughtful silence if words seem poor /
nd expression hopeless, who shall say but h
he lesson has been timefully impaired and t
lot i'll bestowed And when we come to think "
# one who was called quietly away, with but )
'rlef pain and momentary anguish, under the 0
olemn shadows OF the mighty hills and be g
ide the merciful majesty of a great mountain h
ike-which seems to have received him h
emily, decorously, silently, yea, kindly as n
ne of Mother Natures most easeful agents, A
,lding him i'll not unloving arms, away from R
lrious eyes, loneliness greeting and embrac- tie
,g loneliness and rendering its deep appro- W
rate Inequalities, who shall deny that the A
ternal Might and Strength and Majesty and IN
illness OF things are mustered and marshalled ar