Sharp County record., 1879-03-27
NATURE AND MAN.

David ~Wing.i
Assuming, therefore, as the more log
ical and more useful theory, that our
universe proceeded from Mind, 1t must
follow that it proceeded for the good OF
Mind, for its use and pleasure. The
created must exist for the Creator. That
infinite Soul which we call Deity must
have produced this immense material
system, not for the SYSTEMS sake, ou0
for His own sake, just as the ARTIST
carves out a beautiful statue, not at the
request of the dumb statue, but by re-
quest of himself. The Psalmistwas log
ical in sir ging forth the words:
The heavens declare the glory Of God,
for having been formed by a powerful
Mind they must indeed set forth the
thought and emotion of that intellectual
Power which ordered them to exist.
The Creator is the reason OF the created,
1t must follow then that the Being whom
we call God, is a being who can draw
happiness from an external world that
the scattered stars, the vast circle ~
" hich they move, the vast bulk OF
many of them, their varieties OF hight
and heat, all these countless details are
a perpetual Joy to the Intelligence who
evoked forth this wonderful variety.
Such a theory is perfect answer to
those who ask us to mark that the earth
is beautiful where no man dwells- and
that the glories of the midnight sky 90
on even while man is sunk to sleep
Man may be absent from island or con-
tinent, or he may be lost in slumbersI
but if the universe was made in the first
instance for the Maker, then there IS no
part of the sublimity or beauty which
is in vain, and there sis no flower that
is born TO blush unseen and waste its
sweetness on a desert air" In order TO
explain all that greatness and beauty
beyond the sense of man it Is necessary
onlv to remember that God is a Soul,
and, having made the creation for Him
self, must certainly have possessed the
power of enjoying the great production
As we poor little mOrtals, building a lit
tie home for ourselves, enjoy deeply its
bright fire on the hearth and in the
springtime the sunshine, on its dOor-sill
and falling around upon its upspringlng
grass and opening buds, so He that
built that sublime residence which we
attempt to see with our telescopes must,
like us mortals, love the home He has
built, and feel divine Joy in the planets
and suns which bestud His fields, and
in the foliage and flowers which bedeck
and perfume millions of worlds. The
definition of Deity which represents
Him as an Essence self-sutficient, inca
pable of being made more happy, is a
definition born out of our ignorance,
and one which leaves no reason to be
found why God should have made an
external cosmos Better far that we re-
open our definition and make God
lover of happiness that comes from
without, and that therefore there is no
without a Soul that loves
it, and no rose that bushes unseen, and
that no sparrow sings unloved, nor, as
Christ teaches us so delicately, falls to
the ground without breathing out its
little life in the plying hand of the All
Father
But tAe chief reason for discussing
this theme I shall find in some of the
inferences to be deduced from it rather
than in the theme direct, 1t would seem
to follow that the universe having been
made largely for the pleasure of such
Being as God, there must pervade it
some unity which, to complete itself,
must draw into its method
more worlds than our little
earth. That is, our small planet must
be only a leaf from vast forest, and
not q cosmos in itself 1t is only a note
in the large piece of wOrld-music As
Science proceeds in its analysis of light
and air, and in its estimates of the
masses of the steller bodies, it finds our
globe to he only one of millions in some
of the essential elements of nature, and
from these facts of science, and from
the general law of unity, we may infer
that upon millions of planets revolving
around other suns there is TODAY a mar
velOus continuance of our phenomena
of fields, and verdure, and bird-sOng,
and all the infinite variety of organic
life. To imagine that our little world
grows all the roses of the universe, and
sings all the bird-songS, and speaks all
the words, and writes all the poems,
and builds all the homes, and sails all
the ships, and has all the wit and smile
of the whole universe, is to make an as
sumption for which there is not the least
possible basis i'm reason.
The assumption that our universe
came from an Infinite Mind, which built
a palace for Itself, DESTROYS the idea
that all the Bodies in the depths of space
are mere deserts until one comes to our
little earth The absolute truth must
be that there are thousands of worlds
where dwell intelligent beings, and hap
py, and perhaps sorrowful, beings like
man And since theaw of the universe
are all of one quality so far as science
] Al Il 4