GOD'S SILENCE AND HIS VOICES ALSO. 
DR. N. D. HILLIS. 
NATURE loves silence and mys- 
tery. Reticent.she keeps her own 
counsel. Unlike man, she never 
wears her heart upon her sleeve. 
The clouds that wrap the mountain 
about with mystery interpret nature's 
tendency to veil her face and hold off 
all intruders. By force and ingenuity 
alone does man part the veil or pull 
back the heavy curtains. The weight 
of honors heaped upon him who de- 
ciphers her secret writings on the rock 
or turns some poison into balm and 
medicine, or makes a copper thread to 
be a bridge for speech, proclaims how 
difficult it is to solve one of nature's 
simplest secrets. For ages man shiv- 
ered with cold, but nature concealed the 
anthracite under thick layers of soil. 
For ages man burned with fever, but 
nature secreted the balm under the 
bark of the tree. For ages, unaided, 
man bore his heavy burdens, yet nature 
veiled the force of steam and concealed 
the fact that both wind and river were 
going man's way and might bear his 
burdens. 
Though centuries have passed, nature 
is so reticent that man is still 
uncertain whether a diet of grain 
or a diet of flesh makes the ruddier 
countenance. Also it is a matter of 
doubt whether some young Lincoln can 
best be educated in the university of 
rail-splitting or in a modern college and 
library; whether poverty or wealth does 
the more to foster the poetic spirit of 
Burns or the philosophic temper of 
Bach. In the beautiful temple of Jeru- 
salem there was an outer wall, an inner 
court, "a holy place," and afar-hidden 
within, "a place most holy." Thus na- 
ture conceals her secrets behind high 
walls and doors, and God also hath 
made thick the clouds that surround 
the divine throne. 
CONCEALMENTS OF NATURE. 
Marvelous, indeed, the skill with 
which nature conceals secrets number- 
less and great in caskets small and mean. 
She hides a habitable world in a swirl- 
ing fire-mist. A magician, she hides a 
charter oak and acre-covering boughs 
within an acorn's shell. She takes a lump 
of mud to hold the outlines of a beau- 
teous vase. Beneath the flesh-bands 
of a little babe she secretes the strength 
of a giant, the wisdom of a sage and 
seer. A glorious statue slumbers in 
every block of marble; divine eloquence 
sleeps in every pair of human lips; lus- 
trous beauty is for every brush and can- 
vas; unseen tools and forces are all 
about inventors, but they who wrest 
these secrets from nature must "work 
like slaves, fight like gladiators, die like 
martyrs." 
For nature dwells behind adamantine 
walls, and the inventor must capture 
the fortress with naked fists. In the 
physical realm burglars laugh at bolts 
and bars behind which merchants hide 
their gold and gems. Yet it took 
Ptolemy and Newton 2,000 years to pick 
the lock of the casket in which was 
hidden the secret of the law of gravity. 
Four centuries ago, skirting the edge 
of this new continent, neither Colum- 
bus nor Cabot knew what vast stretches 
of valley, plain, and mountain lay be- 
yond the horizon. 
If once a continent was the terra in- 
cognita, now, under the microscope, a 
drop of water takes on the dimensions 
of a world, with horizons beyond which 
man's intellect may not pass. Explor- 
ing the raindrop with his magnifying- 
glass, the scientist marvels at the myr- 
iad beings moving through the watery 
world. For the teardrop on the cheek 
of the child, not less than the star rid- 
ing through God's sky, is surrounded 
with mystery, and has its unexplored 
remainder. Expecting openness from 
nature, man finds clouds and conceal- 
ment. He hears a whisper where he 
listens for the full thunder of God's 
voice to roll along the horizon of time. 
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