Year: 1872

THE LESSON 0F THE SKY.


It is a strange thing how little in
general people know about the sky
1t is the part of creation in which ma
ture has done more for the sake Of
pleasing man, more for the sole and
evident purpose of talking to him and
teaching him, than in any other Of
her works, and it is Just the part in
which we least attend to her. There
are not many other works in which
some more material or essential pur-
POSE than than the mere pleasing Of
man is not answered by every part OF
their organization but every essen
tial purpose of the, sky might, 50 far
as we know, be answered, if once in
three days or thereabout a great ugly
black rain-cloud were brought up over
the blue, and everything well water
ed, and so all left blue again till next
time, with perhaps film of morning
and evening mist for dew. And IN
stead Of this, there is not moment Of
any day Of our lives when nature is
not producing scene after scene, pic
ture after picture, glory after glory,
and working still upon such exquisite
and constant principles of the most
perfect beauty, that it is quite certain
that It is all done for Us, and intended
for our perpetual pleasure. aAnd
every man, wherever placed, however
far from other sources of interest or Of
beauty, has this doing for him con-
stantiy. The neblest scenes of the
earth can be seen and known but by
few; it is not intended that man
should live always in the midst OF
them: he iniures them by his pres
ence /: he ceases to feel them if he be
always with them but the sky is for
all bright as It is, 1t Is not too
Upright and good. for human natures
daily food ~ it is fitted in all its fune-
tiors for the perpetual comfort and
exalting Of the heart, for the soothing
and purifying 1t from its drcss and
dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes
caprieious, sometimes awful; never
the same for two moments together;
almost human in its passions, almost
spiritual in its tenderness, almost
divine in its ipfnity, its appeal to
what is immortal in us Is as distinct
as its ministry of ehastisement or OF
blessing to what is mortal or essential.
And yet We never attend TO 1t, we
never make it q subject Of thought,
UQL - II HAS " uO WIN Jul aAA-LeA
sensations; we look upon all by
which it speaks to Us more clearly
than to brutes, upon all which bears
witness of the intention Of the Su-
preme, that we are to receive more
from the covering vault than the
light and the dew which we share
with the weed and the worm, only as
succession of meaningless and
monotonOus accidents too common
and too vain to be worthy Of moment
Of watehfulness, or glance Of admi-
ration. If in our moments OF utter
idleness and insipidity, we turn %
the sky as q last resource, which Of
its phenomena do we speak OFF, One
says it has been wet, and another 1t
has been windy, and mother 1t has
been warm. Who, among the whole
chattering crowd, can tell me OF the
forms and the precipiees of the chain
of tall, white mountains that glrded
the horizon at noon yesterday? Who
saw the narrow sunbeam that came
out of the south and smOte upon their
SUBMITS until they melted and mold
cred away in 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 before It
like withered leaves? All has passed
unregretted as unseen or, if the
apathy be ever shaken of even for an
instant, it is only by what is gross or
what is extraordinary; and yet it is
not in the broad and fierce manifesta-
tons of the elemental energies, not in
the clash of the hail nor the drift of
the whirlwind, that the highest char
aeters of the sublime are -develeped.-
God is not in the earthquake, nor in
the fire, but in the still, small voice.
They are but the blunt, low faculties
Of our nature which can only be ad-
dressed through lampblaek and light
ming. 1t is in quiet and subdued
passages Of unobtrusive majesty, the
deep and the calm and the perpetual
that which must be sought ere it IS
seen, and loved ere it is seen. and
loved ere it is understood, things
which the angels work out for Us dai-
ly, and yet very eternally, which are
never wanting, and never repeated,
which are to be found always, yet
each found but once; it is through
these that the lesson of devotion is
chiefly taught, and the blessing of
beauty giYen@-.REskin. ...r,...-.