Mirrors of the Sky 



took some time to break the bewitching spell that had fallen 

 on the traveler, but it broke, and he collapsed and relapsed. 

 His merry mood vanished at once, for he was not the man to 

 be delighted with an " unreality," even if it was really de- 

 lightful. But how foolish of this good man to dismiss his 

 delight! He ought to have known that God's great sky- 

 mirrors would not lie. Even the dewdrop mirror reflects 

 the sun, because there is a real sun to reflect. Light does not 

 reflect nothing it paints a real picture of a reality. The 

 trees and herds and green grass were otherwhere, or their 

 pictures would not have been reflected there. This one thing 

 is sure the mirage is not a liar it tells the truth; but how 

 to understand the truth it tells, and how to understand how 

 it tells its truth, "Ah, there's the rub!" 



One of the wonders of the world is that God puts so 

 much beauty in out-of-the-way places. Maybe it is because 

 He intends to make that place one of the in-the-way places 

 some time. The mirage had hung over the desert ten thou- 

 sand times, I am sure, before any human eye was there to 

 see it; but it was never other than beautiful. In the long lone- 

 liness of the desert-silences these apocalypses of nature were 

 as faithfully flashed from those " Mirrors of the Sky" as if 

 ten thousand spectators were watching the beauteous sight. 

 Great things are doing in a thousand places of earth and 

 sky where no human spectator beholds the sight. The 

 most experienced mariner has seen only small sections of 

 the sea, as compared with its immeasurable and mighty 

 deeps. The astronomer's eye has seen only a little a very 

 little of the great goings-on in the stellar skies. And who 

 has found out a tithe of the beautiful things that are going 

 on in the deep forests far back in the mighty mountains. 



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