Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1890-09-05

>S-A' cOoh VI " oIoiSuI DdCRe0 DencQ,
when the whole universe of God Is
spread out like an open scroll before
usi We profess to be educated and
spend our millions for learning, and
look with indifference upon nature,
the great teacher that is all about us.
We profess to be lovers of books and
fill our library shelves, whom all
around us lies the great book of ma.
ture. We profess to be lovers of
art, and hang our walls with pictures.
WHOM the master hand of God has
colored our skies and nature has
painted our landscape. The unbound.
cd creation, says Charming, of sun,
moon, stars, seasons and mountain
top was created and ordained by
God, not merely to feed and clotha
the body, but to nourish the soul
and expand the intellect.
The highest object of education is
growth, development, drawing out
and unfolding the whole nature, phys
ical, intellectual, moral and spiritual,
and in this unfolding. wo must sit
patiently at the feet of our instruct.
or, nature. All thought, NIL growth,
development progress is upward, an
unfolding to God, rs n flower unfolds
to nature, and the great world build
er never made these eternal hills
about you, monuments of his eternal
glory and power, without deep sig
nificance.
We too often forget tho influences
of physical circumstances upon man.
We relegate due power to tho al.
mighty dollar, but we forget the part
that air, sunshine, water and noun.
tain top have played in the progress
and civilization of the world. It is
sunshine tbat colors the rose and
makes beauty; it is water TINT turns
the mill and carries on commerce.
The sturdy oak absorbs its moisture
from the unseen air, and it is pure
oxygen that makes brain and mus
Gle, and brain and muscle are the
moving powers of tho world; and it
is historical and statistical fact that
the largest brains and tho largest
muscles are the product of the hills
and / shouldn't be fur wrong if
should say Virginia hills. 1t is phys.
ical condition that makes great zones
of vegetation, great races of men,
great groves of orange trees. great
belts of blue grass, and that plants
great cities and determines the in.
dustries of any people. 1t was dykes
and levees that reclaimed Holland
from the sea and gave her industri
GUS and happy homes and that made
the drowned landsn> of the Missis
sippi Valley the great agricultural re.
gion of the world. 1t was conl and
iron TINT belted England with net
work of railroads and mado hor the
peer of manufacturing nations, and if
coal and iron, timber and blue grass,
do not transform the already chang
ing garden of Southwest Virginia
into human prosperity we fail to re.
peat history and let our talents, the
germs of physical development, lie
buried beneath our soil. 1t was "bon-
ME highlands" that gave Scotland
her Robert Burns; ''sunny Alps" that
made Switzerland free and indie
pendent republic. Grocian art, cul
ture and worship lowered over and
centralized about Mount Olympus,
and the MUSES. over Mount Helican
land if pure mir, rich sunshine and
grand mountain tops-purer, richer,
grander than the Orient-do not
transform us into people of cul
ture, Of brains, then the t'seeds oi
godlike power are not in us still
Some of you tell me by your uplifted
countenances that I am more poetic
than practical; that ] am giving you
q school boys sentiment. I yield 10
no poetic sentiment, but to pro
found truth, historic, religious and
political, when l say that the worlds
mountains have been the worlds re-
formers and that these "eternal hillsr
about you are your noblest inherit.
ance and richest endowment.
! In our century rnce with older
civilizations, is it not to be deplored
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