The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1880-05-28
THE BEAUTIES OF EARTH.
sermon Delivered by Prof. David
Swing. i'm Central Church. Chicago.

SNAASse In CGAAtEdtA OMuECAA9 CmACGtsOe
Once year, at least, should pulpit
and press pay its most sincere respects
to the external world. Statesmen, ed
itors, men of science, politicians, clergy
men, and, indeed, educated men Of all
| arts, should, IN some sentence or para
graph, tell all and each other what a
marvellous earth is this one where we all
dwell for a period only too brief. In
our latitude this great pageant of nature
comes later than to those living nearer
the sun, but it comes after such a
marked and long winter that the spec
tacle Of spring and summer is made
more impressive by the contrast. Spring
and summer in our North are made by
our rough winters as distinct as Bacon's
embroidery, (which is more pleasing
when there is lively color upon dark and
solemn ground" Southern lands sur
pass our zone in the duration and guam
tity OF leaves and blossoms, and warm
sunshine, but we, perhaps, surpass
for our winter is powerful background
upon which these decorative months
paint their tremendous landscape. What
our hearts may want Of time they make
up by intensity of appreciation. Be
these matters as they may, it must be
admitted that all the way from the st.
Lawrence to the Amazon nature is simply
too large to be measured by any of us,
and we shall all live and die without
having done justice to the hills and val
leys, the lakes and rivers, and fields and
skies around our tents. We shall all re-
semble the disciples who fell asleep
while Jesus was in their company.
| What folly in us to wish to be elsewhere
when we have not yet studied one square
mile Of prairie, or paid to solemn pine
forest the worship Of day It is not
the wisdom Of man, but his misfortune,
that he always wishes to go elsewhere,
| when he has not listened we'll to his own
bird song, nor made any attempt to
gather his own wild flowers. Dwellers
in cities are to be pitied from May to
November, but they need not sigh for far
away lands, for just outside Of all our
noisy, dusty streets, ten miles away, this
sweet kingdom of nature begins, and
colors beautiful as those In Florida
winds as soft as those in Italy, are to be
had by the seeker. God has so made
our world that they who seek shall find,
whether what they seek is forgiveness
or salvation, or only glimpse of grass
or blossoms, or morning dew. Near to
all there are doors to all who will knock
The Psalmist found the glory of God all
around him, found it in such amazing
quantity that he wondered. among such
skies, and clouds, and lights, and shad-
ows, and stars, that the Creator could
remember man, and have mercy upon
him. Measuring Deity by human
standards, it seems to this old thinker
that, in the demands of the universe up
on the attention of God, man might cas-
lily be forgotten.
This natural world, now putting on
its summer beauty, stands related to
man in so many ways that. instead of it's
leading us to fear that God may forget
man, it reminds us that it is an arena
where the Creator especially remembers
His children. Indeed, all the material
creation seems only part of the house
of the soul-not of the soul of man only
but of that living, conscious some
cred to state whether there be any mind
besides the human mind that enjoys to-
day our blossoming earth. We natural
ly consider as myths all these old stories
about spirits that lived in the oaks, that
rustled in the breeze, that dragged their
invisible garments over the grass, myths
which gave the ancients their Dianas
and Pans. myths which fade away from
literature in the midsummer Nights
Dream" where Puck and Tltania and
Oberon figure SO strangely. But that
man is the only form of intelligence
that is enjoying the immense world,
with it's rising and setting suns, with its
infinite loneliness, we have no right to
say. The fact that no being is visible,
Or tangible, or audible, except our
selves would not be conclusive
argument that we have the world in
our keeping, for as God is invisible, SO
there may be somewhere between man
and Deity intelligences not within the
domain of human sense. Dismissing
this inquiry because we are not compe-
tent to discuss it, we can safely mark
the fact that our external world is made
largely IOE HILL. LII USED w U0 ODJGCG0u
to this theory that the earth and sea and
sky are beautiful where man has never
been, but this would only teach us that
the universe was not made for man only.
God Himself loves the beautiful. The
conclusion will remain that the relations
of the world to man are a part of its
final cause. Man does not breathe all
the air there is, nor drink all the water
there is !; he can only take his cupful
from the rivers, and yet the air and the
water are for man. So we cannot see
all the hills and wales and oceans there
are great forests where no human foot
step is to be seen or heard, and yet, in a
great sense, the human family stands as
a reason for this vast earthly house.
This dumb creation may we'll come tc
help us believe in the existence Of q
Supreme mind, and Of human mind
as being distinct from material. Tc
Coleridge, in the vale of Chamouni, all
the details of the uplifted Mont Blanc
spoke Of a God. The crags, the cas-
cades, the torrents, the sea Of pines, the