San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-09-13
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1896.
THE VOICES OF NATURE.

night.
In dewy sleep the lovely flowers
With all their folded buds would
rest,
Then fresh from sweet warm summer
showers,
They'd rise at morn all radiant
dressed.
At dawn the clouds should flee away
Like white-winged birds all sorely
pressed,
IT'LL eve, when Sol, the god of day,
Would drape their splendors in the
81 west.
. Although never depressed by. dark
days and stormy weather am a low
er of sunshine and blue skies. To lie
in the orchard or sit by the brook
side watching the great pile of cumu-
lus clouds banked up in their snowy
swhiteness against the expense of a.
zure, listening to the myriad
voices of nature is heaven
enough for me. There is
. exquisite delight in the sensation ex-
perienced at such times, the realiza-
ton of my oneness with all life-the
life pervading all. Its beauty seems
so palpitating, so nearly akin to hui
man consciousness, that at times l al
most feel as though the silence would
be broken by audible speech. But
this is not needed. There are voices
of nature, language as real as we use
to convey our thoughts to one an
other.
If we are ''near to natures heart"
we hear it throbbing; near to her
breast we hear innumerable voices.
j often wonder just what the crickets
and grasshoppers are saying in their
chirpings, the frogs and den
zens of the marshes in their
queer piping notes, in their calls and
responses. They have a language l
am sure, and we might learn it if we
were truer children of nature. Go
into the grand old forests of many
tints and Shades, alive with bird note
and insect hum, and feeling of awe
falls upon you as in the intervals of
silence your ear catches the voice Of
a murmering stream so family heard.
Oh, the sweetness, the tenderness, the
restful calmnessl You utter an ejac-
lation., a prayer and thousand
voices answer you.
We speak of inanimate nature there
is no such thing The still life of ma
ture has its voice, its being, its con-
slant expression of the One Life. We
feel this as we grow more and more
to realize our oneness with the whole,
as we become more open to the finer,
subtler forces of nature. To breathe
in the air of summers day becomes
then a pleasure which is more than
the mere physical senses can bestow.
wa breathe soulfully, spiritually, as
well as cofporally, and thus come in
to closer touch with the life of intelli-
gence, beauty, goodness, purity, and
force which surround us on every
side. Then it is we hear these voices
so pregnant with all that is hopeful
and life-giving, so strong in their af-
firmations of good, so prophetic in
their utterances of the coming time
when only good shall prevail We
hear not a complaining word, an in
harmonious sound. nothing to CRATE
on the sensitive ear attuned to their
melodious measures. The voices are
all pitched to the keynote of love-
There is no better way of getting
above the discordant conditions of
earth than by holding communion
with these voices, letting them speak
to the inner consciousness of this
higher condition freed from-all that
!, troubles or annoys. 1t is either a
avery, dull or a very selfish nature that
cannot comprehend them at all.
The spontaHeousness of this life, the
utter absence of useless form or re-
striction, infuses its own sense of
r freedom into the mind and instincts.
This is why Sabbath with nature is
JOY, while a day spent in church
going is torture. The stuffy at
idosphere and stiff posture, the for.
NAL ca,.vice and stareotvnad uttpr.