Nature and the Supernatural 27 



therefore thought would be most pleasing and 

 attractive to his God, He copied his pointed arch 

 from the aisles of the forest, and it became a 

 sacred form, and yet everywhere signifies worship. 

 His foliated pillars he took from the palms, his 

 spires from the balsams, his gargoyles from super- 

 natural creatures which he imagined to inhabit the 

 woods. When he had finished his temple, the more 

 nearly it represented, in its groined arches, pillars, 

 and lights, what he saw while looking up and 

 around him in the forest, the more fully it satisfied 

 his worshipful spirit. He would tempt God to 

 come out of his dwelling-place in the wilderness 

 and live with him in the city, therefore he built for 

 him a forest of stone. In these temples religion 

 reached its highest and purest conception of the 

 divine — conceptions which it did not and never 

 could have reached in treeless lands. The Oriental, 

 who went to the cliffs and caves for models for his 

 sacred architecture, worshiped a god stony of heart 

 and of hands. When this god was carried over into 

 forested Europe, ages were required to rehumanize 

 him, and this work of divine transformation the 

 trees had not fully accomplished before they were 

 hewn down to make room for the husbandman. 



The civilized man of the woods also further 

 sought to please God and beguile him into living 

 with him in the city, by reproducing the music of 

 the forest, which he knew God preferred. In his 

 chants and anthems and intoned prayers he sought 



