THE GRIST OF THE GODS 



To have a bit of earth to plant, to hoe, to delve in, 

 is a rare privilege. If one stops to consider, one can- 

 not turn it with his spade without emotion. We 

 look back with the mind's eye through the vista of 

 geologic time and we see islands and continents of 

 barren, jagged rocks, not a grain of soil anywhere. 

 We look again and behold a world of rounded hills 

 and fertile valleys and plains, depth of soil where 

 before were frowning rocks. The hand of time 

 with its potent fingers of heat, frost, cloud, and air 

 has passed slowly over the scene, and the miracle is 

 done. The rocks turn to herbage, the fetid gases 

 to the breath of flowers. The mountain melts down 

 into a harvest field; volcanic scoria changes into 

 garden mould; where towered a cliff now basks a 

 green slope ; where the strata yawned now bubbles 

 a fountain ; where the earth trembled, verdure now 

 undulates. Your lawn and your meadow are built 

 up of the ruins of the foreworld. The leanness of 

 granite and gneiss has become the fat of the land. 

 What transformation and promotion! — the decrep- 

 itude of the hills becoming the strength of the 

 plains, the decay of the heights resulting in the 

 renewal of the valleys ! 



Many of our hills are but the stumps of moun- 

 tains which the hand of time has cut down. Hence 

 we may say that if God made the mountains, time 

 made the hills. 



What adds to the wonder of the earth's grist is 

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