TIME AND CHANGE 



reau entered it, as Bryant and Amiel entered it, and 

 as all those enter it who make it a resource in their 

 lives and an instrument of their culture. The forms 

 and creeds of religion change, but the sentiment of 

 religion — the wonder and reverence and love we feel 

 in the presence of the inscrutable universe — per- 

 sists. Indeed, these seem to be renewing their life 

 to-day in this growing love for all natural objects 

 and in this increasing tenderness toward all forms 

 of life. If we do not go to church so much as did our 

 fathers, we go to the woods much more, and are 

 much more inclined to make a temple of them than 

 they were. 



We now use the word Nature very much as our 

 fathers used the word God, and, I suppose, back of 

 it all we mean the power that is everywhere present 

 and active, and in whose lap the visible universe is 

 held and nourished. It is a power that we can see 

 and touch and hear, and realize every moment of 

 our lives how absolutely we are dependent upon it. 

 There are no atheists or skeptics in regard to this 

 power. All men see how literally we are its child- 

 ren, and all men learn how swift and sure is the 

 penalty of disobedience to its commands. 



Our associations with Nature vulgarize it and rob 

 it of its divinity. When we come to see that the 

 celestial and the terrestrial are one, that time and 

 eternity are one, that mind and matter are one, that 

 death and life are one, that there is and can be no- 



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