SYNTHESIS OF THE NATURAL AND TME SUPERNATURAL 



powerful rival. Naj', is not the human breast nature's 

 best interpreter — her other self. Our late lauriate 

 expressed this when he wrote, 



•' The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains 

 Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 

 Glory about thee, without thee ; and thou fulfillest thy doom, 

 Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom. 

 Speak to Him now for he hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet. ' ' 



We, each of us, in our best moments feel this, though we 

 may not be able to express it in speech. Even as a brief 

 relief from the routine of life we know the value of fellow- 

 ship with nature. At the close of a summer day to sit in 

 your bower and feel the leafy arms of nature around you, 

 to climb the mountain and be enlarged by the view, to 

 walk in a forest of solemn pines, and not merely to see this 

 tree and that, but to feel the spirit of the woods. All this 

 soothes and helps to make us sane, as does the companion- 

 ship of a friend. Even if we are forbidden our run into 

 the country, we can go back in memory to the familiar 

 walks of former days, when 



Meadow, grove and stream, 



The earth and every common sight 



To us did seem apparelled in celestial light, 



The glory and the freshness of a dream. 



I know nature has a majesty in her movement which, at 

 times, awes us. Her severity at other times stuns and 

 terrifies. Yet even in her severest discipline there is 

 moderation and mercy, for I observe with thankfulness 

 that when the agony reaches a certain intensity, she 

 graciously administers the chloroform of unconsciousness. 

 I have seen also that when the brave face death in some 

 noble cause, there is an elevation in their souls— the 

 elevation of fellowship with the Other and larger self— 

 which lifts them above the sharpness of death. An English 

 girl, a few hours before her death, at her home in a country 

 parsonage, asked for a pen, and unable to speak wrote 

 these words : 



