The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1911-01-19
The Laws of Nature.

The laws of nature--the hurry
scurry of this twentieth century,
how seldom we pause to consider
and think of those laws, and to con-
slider just what they are and what
they mean to us all. We talk aptly
of all things of the present; we can
talk intelligently perhaps of the
chance of War in the Balkans Of
the latest and largest consolidation
in trade; the latest murder or the
last divorce scandal; we are apt also
to have rather skeptical views of
the creation and to talk learnedly Of
evolution, the Darwinian theory, or
OF Huxley's views, but now in our
quiet thinking time, we have lots of
time to turn over IN our minds things
that we have gathered bit by bit and
which at the time of collection had
not taken the importance that we
feel should now be given them.
We begin to enumerate to ourselves
certain things; to follow up the line
of thought and find to what differ
ent place it leads us, than before
had been our stopping place. The
fool said, there is no God.'
nooc ro+,,ro 4an 4I.c
we think of the earth revolutions
and the resulting seasons day and
night, spring, summer, autumn and
winter, with the resulting seed times,
growing time and harvest? Then
again we have the tides of the sea,
ever moving, ever changing, but
governed by an infexible law. Again
we have the results of heat and
cold, the disintergration and expan-
sion of heat, and the solidifying and
contraction of cnld-ah hut tharo.-
we come upon an exception, which,
if the world had come together and
just growed" as some tell us it did,
is surprising, but seems clearly to.
me at least to point to an all-wise
and all-seeing Creator. Have you
ever stopped to figure out what it
would mean if that exception had
not been made to the Law of Nature,
that all things contract with cold?
Let us for minute or two consider
what would happen if water, when
it was frozen, contracted. We all
know that the water in the ocean
depths is very cold; well, ice would
be heavier than water and would
therefore sink. There would be no
chance of it thawing in. the ocean
bed and in a short time our oceans
would be solid ice bed. But not
only that, our rivers would be the
same, the same action would be tax
ing place there and the result would
be sure and certain. Then with all
our oceans and rivers solid mass of
ice we should lose one of our staple
articles of diet-there would be no
more fish, and thousands who now
make their living on the great waters
would be driven to live on shore.
But how about our shore, with
solid border of ice and large sections
Of it traversing the country, what
would the climate be?
Should we be able to grow crops
| hardly think it. We should at the
best only have an artic summer, and
not even as warm as they have it
there, because the sun would only
have a short day to shed its rays
when night would again chill every
thing. But animals, could we get
our food from them and our cloth
ing? Hardly. as there would be no
vegetation for their substance and
no water to quench their thirst. A
small thing, is it not? One little ex-
ception to one of natures laws hardly
worth giving thought to; but at
the same time an exception which,
when we come to consider it; means
/ the existence of life on this planet,
and which therefore means our ex-
istence. And yet we marvel at the
Creators work. We wonder why
| this was done, or that; we wonder
what is hidden from us; what is
Fahead Of us, and yet at the same
time we cannot read and cannot
understand the laws we have already,
or, reading, do not believe or under
stand
A. M. P.