THE PROBLEM: THE MODE OF ITS SOLUTION 29 



human sister and companion. As Professor Huxley 

 has said, " they get on rarely together." She speaks 

 to the artist ; to us she is dumb, and ought to be, for 

 we are boorishly careless of her and her teachings. 



Nature, to be known, must be loved. And though 

 you have all the knowledge of a von Humboldt, and 

 do not love her, you will never understand her or her 

 teachings. You will go through life with her, and yet 

 parted from her as by an adamantine wall. 



I do not suppose that the author of the book 

 of Job had ever studied geology, or mineralogy, or 

 biology, but read him, and see whether this old 

 prince of scientific heroes had loved, and understood, 

 and caught the spirit of Nature. And what a grand, 

 free spirit it was, and what a giant it made of him. I 

 do not believe that Paul ever had a special course of 

 anatomy or botany. But if he had not pondered long 

 and lovingly on the structure of his body, and the 

 germination of the seed, he never could have written 

 the twelfth and fifteenth chapters of the first letter to 

 the Corinthians. And time fails to speak of David 

 and all the writers of the Psalms, and of those heroic 

 souls misnamed the " Minor " Prophets. 



Study the teachings of our Lord. How he must 

 have considered the lilies of the field, and that such a 

 tiny seed as that of the mustard could have produced 

 so great an herb, and noticed and thought on the 

 thorns and the tares and the wheat, and watched the 

 sparrows, and pondered and wondered how the birds 

 were fed. All his teaching was drawn from Nature. 

 And all the ^study in the world could never have 

 taught him what he knew, if it had not been a loving 

 and appreciative study. 



