M ISCELLANEOUS 
Now all the heavenly splendour 
Breaks forth in star-light tender 
From myriad worlds unknown; 
And man, the marvel seeing, 
Forgets his selfish being 
For joy of beauty not his own. 
“God made the stars also. It is from 
reflecting on the non-human works of 
God that man can find peace in the 
recognition of his own littleness. 
“Therein lies the supreme need of 
country holidays for dwellers in the 
town. Our industrial civilisation makes 
faith difficult, just because it cuts 
man off from nature and fills his world 
wholly with man’s works and man’s 
affairs. We walk on man-made pave- 
ments among man-made buildings, 
the very heavens pierced by man-made 
chimneys and dimmed by man-made 
smoke, and man’s business fills our 
thoughts. It is city life cut off from 
material nature which makes material- 
ists. Country-folk find it easier to be- 
lieve in God, because they are less 
tempted to believe wholly in them- 
selves. The ugly philosophy called 
naturalism was born of familiarity with 
men's machines, not with God’s nature. 
“The language of nature speaks to 
us in two great parables, the parable of 
natural growth, and the pajrable of 
utter dependence on an environment 
we did not make and cannot alter. Per- 
haps they are the parables which our 
modern world most needs to learn 
afresh, if it would really understand 
itself.’’ 
“Study Nature not Books.” 
Louis Agassiz’s favorite slogan that 
in 1873 he placed in conspicuous posi- 
tion in his laboratory at the Island of 
Penikese is in danger sometimes of 
being misunderstood. Agassiz was a 
lover of books as well as of nature. He 
and his pupils used books in their 
studies and he himself wrote delightful 
books. He was not only an observing 
scientist but a graceful literary por- 
trayer of what he had seen. What he 
meant was that the end of scientific 
study is to understand nature, and 
books should no more be studied as an 
end than the microscope or the net or 
the rubber boots used in collecting 
aquatic objects. Books are right when 
they are a help in studying nature, but 
the reader is not an apiarist because he 
has read Maeterlinck’s “The Life of 
the Bee,” nor is he a chemist because 
he drinks oxygen and hydrogen in a 
chemical compound. 
To some of our enthusiastic contrib- 
utors the editor of this magazine has 
had frequent occasion to return articles 
because they were too bookish ; that 
is, they were evidently copied from a 
book and no personal observation had 
been made. If an original observation 
is offered and a helpful reference made 
to a book, that is right. No matter how 
much one loves books, the more love 
the more reason for keeping them in 
their place, and a magazine has a posi- 
tively distinct point of view. Now and 
then a snappy quotation may be made 
from a book but only when it is evi- 
dently an inspiration to the direct 
study of nature. So when you write to 
this magazine it should be the outcome 
of Agassiz’s saying, “Study nature not 
books.” 
There is an English church where a 
box hangs in the porch. It is used for 
communications for the pastor. Cranks 
put their notes in it, but occasionally 
it does fulfil its purpose. Recently the 
minister preached, by request, a ser- 
mon on “Recognition of Friends in 
Heaven,” and during the week the fol- 
lowing note was found in the box : 
“Dear Sir — I should be much obliged 
if you could make it convenient to 
preach to your congregation on ‘The 
Recognition of Friends on Earth,’ as 
I have been coming to your church for 
nearly six months, and nobody has 
taken any notice of me yet.” — Christian 
Register. 
I would like to have a little less, or 
much less, destruction and more re- 
sources for construction in America. I 
would like to have less of toil to main- 
tain armies and navies and more of play 
to hearten the American people. 1 don’t 
believe the best of success comes out 
of the constant grind. I would like 
an America where there is some be- 
coming leisure and opportunity for 
recreation, not for just a few people, 
but for a fortunate American people in 
which all may participate. — President 
Harding. 
Seed of the trailing arbutus can be 
obtained by tying glass vials over the 
blossoms. 
