FOREST AND STREAM. 
489 
Sept. 26, 1908.] 
Nature's Sermons 
By WILLIAM H. AVIS 
E who goes to the fields, woods, moun¬ 
tains, lakes, streams, rivers or down to 
the sea and fails to absorb lessons that 
are wholesome and good does not reap the most 
important benefits of an outing. 
My friends say to me: “Why don’t you go 
to church?” My an- 
swer is always the 
same: “I do go to 
church, but my church 
is not of the city, 
1 but a church far 
grander — infinitely 
more sublime. Its 
construction is not of 
brick and mortar, 
polished wood, stain¬ 
ed glass, plush car¬ 
pets, upholstered seats 
and glittering chan¬ 
deliers. My church 
i is not confined within 
limits of four 
walls; it is the bound¬ 
less and free out¬ 
doors. 
“B e w i 1 d e r ingly 
beautiful is my church 
with its emerald pas¬ 
tures and lovely val¬ 
leys ; its grassy, far- 
reaching, flower- 
; strewn plains; its 
wooded hills, majes¬ 
tic mountains and 
frowning cliffs; its 
murmuring brooks, 
gliding rivers and 
rushing torrents; its 
placid lakes and 
heaving oceans; its 
| rugged, wave-lashed 
j shores; its zephyrs to 
: whisper and winds to 
sing; its lightnings, 
thunders, storms and 
hurricanes; its blush- 
j ing mornings and 
! brilliant mid-day 
1 splendors; its peace¬ 
ful evenings and star- 
; bejeweled nights; its 
changing seasons and 
| all of its varied ani- 
1 mal life. All sincere 
communicants of my 
. church love it with 
a passion which only 
death can sever. It 
is the church of nature, and he that loves nature 
deep down in his heart worships nature’s maker 
with all his soul.” 
In the churches of the city the good preachers 
tell over and over the old story of charity and 
j salvation; but do the human words impress as 
eloquently or profoundly as even the faintest 
whisperings of nature? Dressed in the heights 
of fashion, a man can sit in the church of the 
city while a sermon is in progress and remem¬ 
ber his debtors and creditors. The same man, 
dressed in rags in the sweet purity of the free 
outdoors, would forget both while listening to 
the enchanting song of a bird, the whisper of 
a zephyr among the leaves, or while inhaling 
ONE OF THE BROOKS. 
From a photograph by F. F. Sornherger. 
the fragrance of a flower from the meadows. 
“Forgive your enemies.” Never was sermon 
preached by human tongue when this admonition 
was not impressed upon the congregation. Who 
ever traveled cautiously down a brook, perhaps, 
taking a rainbowed beauty here and there, or 
looked upon emerald beds of dewy grasses 
sprinkled with buttercups and daisies, or a bunch 
of golden cowslips, or watched slender ane¬ 
mones dreamily nodding in the soft air, or lis¬ 
tened to low, droning hum of insects and re¬ 
membered that such a thing as an enemy existed 
in the whole wide world? Instead, we follow 
the brook, on and on. Its devious windings 
lead us through darkly wooded canons, unpierced 
by noonday ray; down rocky, mossy inclines, 
fretted by crinkling foam; white as driven 
snow it tumbles among the boulders to where 
amber shallows greet the sunlight; sweeping the 
feet of sandstone cliffs crowned by whispering 
pines; gliding through emerald meadows and 
broadening into 
placid pools to mirror 
* cloud and sky; flow- 
, r ing onward to the sea 
with ever - increasing 
song as we follow it 
in its ramifications 
and note its ever- 
changing moods. Un¬ 
consciously we will 
absorb from nature's 
book a sermon 
preached not by the 
tongue of man, but 
soothing as a 
mother’s cradle song 
and beneficial alike to 
body and soul. 
It is summer and 
we are out upon the 
sea. Our yacht is 
under mainsail, top¬ 
sail, jib and jibtop- 
sail. The wind is 
light, but favorable. 
The day is westering 
fast. A gentle swell 
is upon the sea, and 
the swinging, dark- 
blue surges cause our 
little craft to rise and 
fall in rhythmic time. 
Far down upon the 
western rim of the 
sea, just beneath a 
billowy bank of rose 
and pearl-tinged 
clouds, the great 
golden orb of day is 
majestically settling 
to his nightly rest; 
and delicate fingers 
of light are stretch¬ 
ing to the further¬ 
most limits of the 
east, gilding the pul¬ 
sating waves with 
scintillating radiance, 
more brilliant than 
the flash of precious 
gems. As he settles 
deeper into his bed 
the g e n 11 y-s w e 11- 
ing bosom of the sea is delicately tinged with 
patches of ever-changing light, and in the course 
where falls his dying, translucent path, a school 
of porpoises roll and blow. On graceful pinion 
immaculate gulls rise and fall in the ethereal 
azure above the surface, and with tip of wing 
touch the pure surges’ crest now and then. And 
their plaintive cries, mingling with the solemn 
murmur of the surf upon the distant sands, sing 
