Article #74 - Nature

God made the present Earth as the home of man but had he meant it as a mere lodging place a world less beautiful would have served the purpose. There was no need for the carpet of verdure or the ceiling of blue – no need for the mountains and cataracts and forests – no need for

the rainbow, no need for the flowers. But man is something more than the animal which wants lodgin[g] and food. He has a spiritual nature, full of keen perceptions and deep sympathies. He has an eye for the sublime and the beautiful and his kind Creator has provided man’s abode

with affluent materials for these nobler tasks. He has built Mount Blanc, and molten [molded?] the lakes in which its shadow sleeps. He has intoned Niagara’s thunder, and has bre[a]thed the zephyr which sweeps its spray. He shagged the steep with its cedars and spread the meadow with its kingcups and daisies. He has made it a world of fragrance and music – a world of brightness and sym[m]etry – a world where the grand and the graceful the awful and lovely rejoice together. In fashioning the home of man the Creator had an eye to something more than convenience and built not a barrack but a palace – not a workshop but an Alhambra; something which should not only be very comfortable but very splendid and very fair – something which should inspire the soul of its inhabitant, and even draw forth the “very good” of  complacent Deity.