Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1949-08-18

ent aspects OF COO s W
creative power.
Psalm 8 brings out
the dignity and the
glory of man, made - -
to be master of the DR.. Foreman
earth; Psalm 10:
1-6 listens to the majestic music Of
sun and stars; Psalm 65:9-13 sees
nature as a farmer sees it, in terms
of sun, rain and crops; Psalm 104,
one of the noblest poems in exis-
tence, celebrates Gods glory in all
things great and small.
-
Mystery
THESE inspired Psalmists saw a
l high truth: Nature is for mans
use, in part, but it has also value,
a beauty and splendor all its
own; and it is one of the ways by
which we can know Goo. What is
true of nature is true, lar more, of
TIA God who created all things. One
dN khe thoughts suggested to their
minds was the mystery of nature.
Even today, with all that
science has discovered, there
is mystery in the most elemen-
tai facts of existence. What is
light? What Is life? What is
energy? Where did it come from
and what Is the destiny of it
all?
A common grass blade performs
miracles that chemistry has not
yet inflated. The mystery of nature
suggests the deeper mystery of
natures God.
Power
NTE ARE beginning now to real
w ize, even better than the
Psalmists could, how much energy
there is in nature. We have seen
tragic evidence of the atoms pow
er. Now we have also found that
while energy cannot be destroyed,
it cannot be created by US, though
it constantly changes form.
As the water In a power sta
ton which has run through
turbine will not climb back up
to turn the turbine again, SO
the whole universe (they tell
Wus) is in the process Of running
y down.
But how was the universe born,
how was energy born, in the first
place? How was the universe, so to
speak, wound up? Science does not
profess to know; but religious an
swers by faith: In the beginning,
God -.
Beauty
THE writer of Psalm 104 was well
l aware that some parts of nature
are useless to man; but he re-
joiced in them none the less. Few
of his .neighbors had any use for
whales, for example, but he takes
delight in the whale Che calls him
LeviathaD just playing in the
ocean. st. Augustine, in the same
mood, says somewhere about things
like wasps and spiders that if we
could forget that they bite, we
Void be greatly awedS by their
beauty and the perfection of their
mechanism. Indeed, st. Augustine,
in one of his prayers. calls God
''Pulchritudo," Beauty. Just as
God is The Truth and The Good,
so he lis The Beautiful.
Lazy
TEE writers of these nature
~ Psalms Especially. 10 and $50
were impressed by anoth er
fact about nature: its regularity.
You can count on the sunrise, you
always know which order the sea-
sons will follow. Even things like
earthquakes and tornadoes. which
seem pretty unpredicable, follow
laws OI LIlelI OWlls ONlCllOS Aloo INV
shown this to be true on cosmic
scale. The stuff Of which the farth-
est stars are made is just the same
(only a lot hottcrD as the stuff in
the rocks under your feet at this
minute.
The laws that govern the fall
~ leaf or the shape Of a rain
[rop are the same laws that
can be seen in the whirling OF
star-dust fifty million light
years away.
The Creator Of all is not erratic,
eccentric or capricious. He is the
God of Law, for from his infinite
Mind come all the patterns, known
to US or yet unknown, by which the
vast fabric of the universe is woven.
Mystery, Power. Beauty, Law: All
nature, not only the stars. shine
with all these-and as Addison
says,
Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us Is divine"
III Of Religious Education on behalf Of
10 ,Protest denominations. Released
10y WNU Features.