290 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



those valley lamps down here where our small village 

 nestles is to know indeed that 



The heavens declare the glory of God, 

 And the firmament sheweth His handiwork. 



From Jupiter our earth would be but a tiny star; from 

 Sirius it would be, no doubt, invisible. What "insect 

 cares" are these that trouble us, in the face of such im- 

 mensity? As the imagination leaps into depth beyond 

 depth of space, layer after layer of passion and small- 

 ness seem cast off from our spirits, and in the silence 

 of the midnight our soul taps anew the primal sources of 

 its strength. 



"Silence came before creation, and the heavens were 

 spread without a word." The stars and the sunshine, 

 the grass and the trees, the snow that is sent like wool, 

 the blessing of soft showers, all the lovely spectacle of 

 the seasons, the dome of the hills, the curve of the sea- 

 rim, were man's inheritance before he builded cities and 

 made himself triumphant and ubiquitous. Of course, 

 to say that God dwells only on the hills or speaks with 

 the voice of many waters, to make of Nature- worship a 

 denial of His habitation in the human heart, a denial of 

 man's urgent need for the Presence in the market- 

 place, would be the merest folly. But, especially per- 

 haps in these latter days when we speak so much of a 

 "love of Nature" and know so little what that means, 

 when neither the scientific inquiry of the naturalist nor 



