The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-03-31
Spring.

WIN buc uISb udS VI MdrCu COLned
spring with all its promises and hopes,
Andno other season is so truly named
as this. Where the ice and snow of
winter have departed and the genial
rays of the sun have warmed the soil
everything with life is indeed springing
tits popular idea in places that when
one lies upon the ground and places the
ear on the surface he can hear the sound
of the growing things, everywhere in
motion in the soil, forcing themselves
toward the air and the light of the sun.
1t is easy to conceive that this fancy may
be true, for really when the SUMS heat
penetrates the earth life springs into ac-
ton, and life is motion. So that the
season OF spring is indeed well named,
for it is the springing of dormant life
into activity, and of dead matter into
life. But what is the great universal
power which is thus causing all matter
to vibrate and pulsate with life, forcing
seeds to terminate, buds to open, bios
some to unfold and covering the soil
with new verdureP The sun is the
moving power of all this, and as we en-
Joy its returning warmth and see its in
huences upon vegetation as the spring
opens we may well pause and consider
how all these effects are accomplished
and what benificent power the sun is.
The ancients were very forcibly i'm
pressed with this power of the sun.
No wonder they ignorantly worshped
it, considering it divine, and approach
ing through it, as nearly as they could,
to the infinite power which created life
and sustains it, but of which no revela-
ton had taught them the truth. The old
fable of Promethus, who was believed to
have made figure of clay and warmed
it into life by means of n spark of fire
which he stole from Heaven, was very
near approach to the truth which we now
learn from the physical laws of the uni
verse; for the sunbeam, a spark of celes-
tial fire, transforms dead matter, CLAY
itself, into organized and living forms,
which in their turn sustain human life,
and enable mankind with all the inferior
animals to exist. The Promethean spark
was indeed a sunbeam, and the imagi-
nation of the ancient poet was so near
the truth that we might well believe he
had perception or intuition of all which
we are now able to understand from the
scientific Investigations and discoveries
of past ages.
For all the grand phenomena of force
and life in nature originate in the
warmth and power of the sun. Without
its heat and light there could be no or
ganized exisbence-no life. There would
be no rain, no water, no chemical action
fhN would l~n l..
would be still, and all would be silent
and dead. But with its heat and light
all the chemical forces are brought into
action, and the gases and various ele-
mentS are condensed into vegetable
forms, which in their turn give ex-
istence to animal life. From the
first, when the sun was created,
and light turned the primeval dark
ness into day, the suns rays have
been engaged in converting these
gases and elements into materials which
are stored up into vast magazines of use
full force, from which we directly or in
directly gather our fuel, coal and wood;
our food, our clothing, our shelter and
all our necessaries of life. From the
very first plants, the lowly MOSES which
covered the soil, and the gigantic palms
whose remains we find deep in the rocks
where we procure our coal, to the pres
ent day when we see the verdure of one
year decaying upon the surface to pro-
vide sustenance for another year S
growth, during all those ages the beams
of the sun have been busy converting
carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen
into plant issue and mingling with them
the mineral elements into living organ
isms which have been collecting for our
uses. A vast circle and cycle of opera
ton has been revolving during all those
ages, with infinite variation and variety,
but yet in beautiful order, which, as we
contemplate it, would seem like some
vast kaleidoscope vision, everrevolving,
ever changing; always falling from one
orderly grouping into another; combin-
ing and separatingH groups dissolving
and re-arranging; all the atoms in cease
less motion, yet in orderly and deter
mined paths and always the same, and
the prime mover and force which pro-
duces all this action and maintains the
order and system of it is the sunbeam,
the spring of all life and existence. ~
Y Times.
1t is the custom in most families
who give attention to the concerns of the
NnI&l 10 -. 4