ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



ment — a garment that clothes the whole world 

 with the terrific and the destructive, as well as with 

 the beautiful and the beneficent. Yet her fairer 

 forms and gentler influences are undoubtedly the 

 expression of those forces and conditions that go 

 hand in hand with the things that make for our de- 

 velopment and well-being. 



Probably not till flowers bloomed and birds sang 

 was the earth ripe for man. Not till the bow ap- 

 peared on the retreating storm-cloud was anything 

 like human life possible. Of savage, elemental Na- 

 ture, black in tempest and earthquake, hideous in 

 war and pestilence, our poets and nature-students 

 make little, while devout souls seem to experience a 

 cosmic chill when they think of these things. 



The majority of persons, I fancy, when they con- 

 sider seriously the problem, look upon Nature as 

 a sort of connecting link between man and some 

 higher power, neither wholly good nor wholly bad; 

 divine in some aspects, diabolical in others; minis- 

 tering to our bodies, but hampering and obstructing 

 our souls. They see her a goddess one hour, and a 

 fury the next; destroying life as freely as she gives 

 it; arming one form to devour another; crushing or 

 destroying the fairest as soon as the ugliest; limited 

 in her scope and powers, and not complete in her- 

 self, but demanding the existence of something 

 above and beyond herself. 



Under the influence of Christianity man has 



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