X MANUAL OF NATURE STUDY. 



of which were as numerous as the ideas to be represented. 

 Hence wood and stream were early peopled with divine 

 images born out of this love of nature. "To those gods," 

 it is said by one writer, "we owe our grandest architectural 

 forms and most beautiful statuary. For at first temples 

 were hollowed out of the trunks of trees, and wooden gods 

 were placed therein for safety." As the love of nature 

 lifted man's soul, "temples of wood took the place of trees, 

 and these in turn gave place to temples of stone, beautifully 

 adorned with gold and silver, and the wooden gods gave 

 place to statuary of marble and ivory, so that to-day we can 

 carve nothing to equal the work of these old Greek sculp- 

 tors." 



The Greek's love of nature developed the Grecian spirit, 

 and as it grew it poured itself out into the general spirit of 

 nature, and the spirit of nature, thus reinforced, returned a 

 flood of light upon the spirit of the Greek. Each stage of 

 spiritual progress demands a finer piece of statuary to repre- 

 sent deity and a better temple for his dwelling-place. This 

 idea of worship — for that is what it was — this reaching out 

 after satisfaction in nature, increases the magnitude, beauty 

 and grandeur of the statuary and decreases the number of 

 deities. When each element of the universe was considered 

 separate and apart from all others, as distinct organisms in 

 nature, deities multiplied in great abundance; but when the 

 elements were found organized into one complex whole, a 

 universal spirit was plainly visible through these outward 

 manifestations. This universal spirit, which is God in 

 nature, demanded a temple infinitely more beautiful than 

 the finest Grecian architecture — a temple not made of mate- 

 rial things. The ideal temple moved on and on beyond the 

 bounds of matter; indeed it passed into the spiritual realm. 



