Year: 1877

Ii is a strange thing how littl5 in
general people know about the sky. II
Is the part of creation in which nature
has done more for the sake OF pleasing
man, more for the sole and evident pur-
pose of talking TO him than in any other
of her works, and it is just the part in
which we least attend 10 her. There
are not many of her other works in
which some more material or essential
purpose than the mere pleasing of msn
Is not answered by every part Of their
organization but every essential pur-
pose of the sky might, 81 far a. We
know. be answered. if once in three
days or thereabOut great, ugly, black
rain clouds were brought up over the
blue, and everything well-watered and
so all left blue again till next time with
perhaps film of morning and evening
mist for dew. And instead of this,
there Is not a moment of any day of our
lives when nature is not producing
scene after scene, picture after picture
glory after glory. and working still
upon such exquisite and constant prin-
ciples of the most perfect beauty, that
il i quite certain il is all done for us
and intended for our perpetual pleas
ure. And every man wherever placed,
however far from other sources of in
terest or beauty, has this doing for him
constantly. The nobleSt scenes of the
earth can be seen and known by but
few; it Is not intended that man should
live always in the midst of them; he in
jures them by his presence. he ceases
10 feel them If he be always with them:
but the sky is for all bright a. il is, it
is not too ''bright and good for human
natures daily food; - ii is fitted in all
its functions for the perpetual comfort
and exalting of the heart, for the sOOth-
ing and purifying it from il dross and
dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes Ca
PRECIOUS, sometimes awful, most human
in its passions, almest spiritual in it,
tenderness, almost divine in it, infinity
its appeal to what is mortal in us is a.
distinct as its ministry of chastiSement
or of blessing To what is mortal is es-
Sential. And Vet We never attend u
il, we never make il Il subject of thought
but "a il has to do with our animal SEN
sations; We look upon all by which il
speaks to us more clearly than to brute,
upon all which bears witness 10 the in
tentiOn of the Supreme, that We are 10
receive more from the covering vault
than the light and dew which We share
with the weed and the worm, only a. a
succession of meaningless and monoto-
nous accidents too common and too vain
to be worthy of a moment of watchful-
ness or a glance OF admiration. III in
our moments of utter idleness and in
sipidity, we turn 10 the sky "a last re-
source, which of its phenomena do we
speak of? One says il has been wet,
and another il has been windy, and an
other it has been warm. Who, among
the whole chattering crowd, can tell
me of the chain of tall white mountains
that girded the horizon at noon yester-
day: Who saw the narrow sunbeam
that came out of the south and smOte
upon their SUBMITS until they melted
and mouldered away in a dust of blue
rain: Who saw the dance of the dead
clouds when the sunlight left them last
night, and the west wind blew them be-
fore it like withered leavess All has
passed unregretted a. unseen: or if the
apathy be ever shaken of even for sn
instant, il i only by what is gross or
what is extraordinary; and vet il is
not in the broad and fierce manifesto
tiOns of the elemental energies, nor in
the clash of hail nor the drift of the
whirlwind, that the highest characters
of the sublime are developed. God Is
not in the earthquake. nor in the fire.
but in the still, small voice. They are
bur the blunt. low faculties of our ma
ture which can only be addressed
through lampblack and lightning. II
is in quiet and subdued passage Of un-
obtrusiye majesty, the deep and the
calm and perpetual-that which must
be sought ere it is seen and loved. ere
it is understood, things which the angels
work out for Us daily, and vet vary
eternally, which are never wanting,
never repeated, which are TO be found
but once; it is through these that the
lesson OF devotion i chiefly taught,
and the blessing of beauty given
Ktsk.iR.