No. 4.] LOVE AND STUDY OF NATURE. 153 



sill the Jesus of life and ideal, which is at the very top of the 

 organic evolutionary series, the highest branch of the great 

 family tree of which we and even the animals beneath us are 

 lower twigs, shows us toward what lofty goal the best de- 

 velopmental influences in the world are tending. 



We read of the venerable Breda gazing through his rude 

 astronomic tube, and pausing to write a Magnificat or a 

 Gloria in Excelsis ; of St. Francis D'Assisi addressing stars, 

 flowers and worms as his brothers and sisters ; we see the 

 order and perfect structure of the lowest and most repulsive 

 things, and realize that nature is a veil ; as the term indi- 

 cates, that it is pregnant with the about-to-be ; and when 

 we realize how all things seem to cry out for a higher expla- 

 nation, and strain our eyes to see through the azure, our 

 heart sings the ancient and only song of Horus, " Hush, all 

 hush." There is no matter that is dead or inert. What 

 seems so is an accident, perhaps merely of temperature, or 

 we know not what. This world is dynamic, and made 

 of pure force, and that is spiritual. Of her most repulsive 

 aspects we might use the language which that quaint and 

 recent English genius poet applied to his mistress, who was 

 homely, but with every charm of character and spirit, when 

 he cries, " I cannot see thy countenance, love, for thy 

 soul." 



There surely is a renaissance, a revival of the love of 

 nature abroad in the world to-day. The book stores show it 

 in numberless new books, with large sales, on ferns, mush- 

 rooms, birds and stars, which the people buy and read. 

 Magazines, lecture courses, the vast body of new popular 

 science extension work show the same thing ; although 

 there are many mucker or Philistine souls whose hearts are 

 still hardened against the knocking of the still, small, plead- 

 ing voice of this holy spirit. I well remember how the 

 faithful country pastor of my youth, at the close of his 

 revival sermons, used to say, pointing a long finger in turn 

 toward almost all of us, "And now, do you, and you, 

 really love God; and, if not, will you now turn from the 

 error of your ways before it is too late?" And I say to 

 you, with no less solemn sanction and no less unction, Do 

 you eaeli now really love nature in this day when her holy 



