The San Francisco call., 1896-07-05


French astronomer and scientific populariZer
Flammarion, loves from time TO time to pene
trate beneath 1.-THE outside of things" and TO seek
the soul of nature. In his scientific romance
"Uranie," occur many beautiful, true and highly
poetic illusions OF this kind but in collection of
his writings various natural subjects entitled
"In Heaven and Earth (Dans lie Ciel sur lie
Terre), find little chapter profoundly
charming and unlike the ordinary works of 'un-
devout astronomers" that we may be excused for
transatng for the ben eft of readers. 1t is
headed "The Universal Prayer.
One summers evening I had Quilted the
fowery slopes of Sante Adresse, a delicious
marine villa hung upon the hammock of the
hills to mount westward the heights OF Cape
Heve When one looks at these heights from
the loot of the cliffs one imagines colossuses of
stone Redeemed by the sun, motionless giants
who are present petrifed witnesses, at the
formidable movements of the sea- and who
feel them dying at their feet. These enormous
masses, inaccessible from the Shore alone ap-
pear worthy of domina ating the grand specta-
Gle. Beside them, when near the sea, man
seems so small that he soon loses sight of his
own existence and feels himself united with
the mingled life which hovers over the sound
of the waves.
1 had mounted gradually to the higher
level, where the signals stand to announce to
far-off ships the hourly movement of the tides
upon the shore, where the light kindes at the
dark immensity. The glorious orb OF day was
still suspended. glowing in the clouds of pur-
ple y Above, the blue sky crowned me
with its purity. Below, the heather peopled
with active insects, raised its couch of per-
fumes l walked to the scarped edge, at the
bottom OF which yawns the abyss. At the edge
of the vertical bluff the eye dominates the Inn
mensity OF the sea, which extends to the left,
from southeast to northwest, and if it looks
down erpendicularly the sight is lost in the
depth of the green escerpment of the rocks
and brushwood, rourh carpet, spread at three
hundred feet below this rampant. The roar of
the waves barely mounts to here, and the ear
only perceives a uniform sound, of which the
wind sustains the murmuring intensity
1t is q silence, this far-off chant of the sea-
Nature was attractive 20 the last adieu which
the prince of light giving TO the world be-
fore descending from his throne and disap-
pearing under the liquid horizon. Calm and
reflective, she assisting at the universal
prayer of the creatures; for they were praying
their holy orison of thankfulness as they re-
ceived the last glance of the good sun; all,
from the soft and solitary medusa, from the
starfish with his purple fringe, up to the chirp-
ing grasshoppers up to the snow-halcyon, all
were thanking Him piously.
And ii like incense rising from the
waves and noun tains, and it seemed as if the
tempered rumbling on the Shore the breeze
which blew from the continent, the embalmed
atmosphere, the light dying into the serenity
of the blue. the cooling of the ardors of the
day, if all things in this place had con-
sciousness OF their existence, and participated
with love in that universal alteration.
To that holocaust of the earth was united in
my thoughts the attractions Of the spheres,
not only those which bring near or draw away
our globe from the suns center, but agein the
sympa thies of all the stars grGvitating in the
imfnensity of the heavens. Above my head
were extended the sublime harmonies and the
gigantic movements of the celestial bodies
The earth becoming an atom floating in
the infinite. But from that atom to all the
suns of space, to those whose light takes mil
lions of years to reach us, to those which lie
unknown beyond human ken, felt an invisi-
BILE bond attaching in the unity of a single
creation all the universes and all the minds.
And the immense prayer of the immeasurable
heaven had its echo, its strophe its visible
representation in that of the terrestrial life
which vibrated around me, in the sound of the
sea, in the perfumes of the shore, in the last
note of the bird in the woods, in the confused
melody of insects, in the moving assemblage of
that scene. and above all in the admirable
illumination of that twilight
l looked. But l was so small in the midst
of that rendering of thanks that the grandeur
of the spectacle overcame me. felt my per-
sonality vanish before the immensity OF ma
ture. Very soon it seemed to me that could
neither speak nor t0lnk. Inc vast
tended infinitely. 1 no longer existed. and my
eyes were covered with veil. l gazed with
out seeing, lost upon the mountain. The sea
fed into infnity, and the creatures continued
their prayer.
And the sun, source of that light and of
that life, looked for the last time above the
horizon of the seas, and when he had received
that homage of all the creatures, which none
among them had thought OF refusing he ap-
peared satisfied with that day, and descended
gloriously toward the hemisphere of the other
peoples.
Then great silence took place in nature
Clouds of purple and gold few toward the
royal couch and hid the last blushing CLEANS
The waves were soothed, for the wind which
swept them upon the beach had fallen. The
little winged beings went to sleep, and the
star, forerunner OF the evening, kindled in the
ether.
20 mysterious Unknownp cried 1; great
Being-immense Beingl who are we then2 SUI
preme authority of harmony, who, then, art
thou, if thy work is so great? Poor human
mites who think they know thee. o Godl
God! Atoms-nothingsl How small we arei
How little we arei
Chow great thou arti Who then dared to
name thee for the first time! Who is then the
proud madman who for the first time pre-
tended to define theel o Godl my Godi
all powerfulness and all tenderness, sublime
and unfathomable immensityl
"And what name to give those who have de-
MED you, to those who do not believe in you,
to those who live without thought of you to
those who never felt your presence, Father
of Nature.
40 love thee, love theel sovereign and
unknown cause Being whom no human
speech can name, love you, divine princi-
plel but am so small that know not if you
hear me-"
AS these thoughts rushed out of my soul to
join the great affirmation of entire nature,
some clouds withdrew from the sunset and the
golden cadence of the enlightened regions in
undated the mountain.
"Yes thou nearest me, Creatori thou
who givest to the little flower of the fields its
beauty and its perfume. The voice of the
ocean does not drown mine, and my thought
rises to thee, o my Godl with the prayer of
all'
From the top of the promontory my sight ex-
tended to the south like to the west over the
plain like over the sea. Turning I perceived