NATURE AND THE PSALMIST 281 



are very still. Only a far-off cow-bell tinkles and a 

 vesper sparrow sings softly to himself. The spirit, too, 

 is very still, hushed with happy awe. "Thou makest 

 the outgoings of the morning and the evening to re- 

 joice." The slow feet turn homeward through a world 

 transformed, a world not of bicker and restriction and 

 the small, strutting ego, but of imminent divinity. 



Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it [the same hymn 

 continues in a mood of adoration]. 



. . . Thou waterest her furrows abundantly; 

 Thou settlest the ridges thereof: 

 Thou makest it soft with showers; 

 Thou blessest the springing thereof. 

 Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; 

 And thy paths drop fatness. 



We may wax learned over this passage, declaring that 

 it shows the influence of "the simple nature-religion of 

 a long-established agricultural people," the Hittites of 

 the land of Canaan. We may discourse on the geog- 

 raphy and climate of Canaan, and show that in a time 

 and region where all life depended upon the success of 

 the crops, nothing could be more natural than this ado- 

 ration. Yet all our discourse and discussion will seem 

 futile enough on a day late in April, when we stand in 

 familiar fields and watch the world made soft with 

 showers. There will be a frail green upon the bosom 

 of the earth where it is not ridged into gleaming brown 

 furrows. In the orchard and the woods there will be a 

 haze of emerald. A fringe of poplars or of birches by 



