290. Voices of Nature

Voices of Nature

Isa_60:13 : ’93The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary.’94

On our way from Damascus we saw the mountains of Lebanon white with snow, and the places from which the cedars were hewn, and then drawn by ox-teams down to the Mediterranean Sea, and then floated in great rafts to Joppa, and then again drawn by ox-teams up to Jerusalem to build Solomon’92s temple. Those mighty trees in my text are called the ’93glory of Lebanon.’94 Inanimate nature felt the effects of the first transgression. When Eve touched the forbidden tree, it seems as if the sinful contact had smitten not only that tree, but as if the air caught the pollution from the leaves, and as if the sap had carried the virus down into the very soil until the entire earth reeked with the leprosy. Under that sinful touch nature withered. The inanimate creation, as if aware of the damage done it, sent up the thorn and briar and nettle to wound, and fiercely oppose, the human race. Now, as the physical earth felt the effects of the first transgression, so it shall also feel the effects of the Saviour’92s mission. As from that one tree in Paradise a blight went forth through the entire earth, so from one tree on Calvary another force shall speed out to interpenetrate and check, subdue and override, the evil. In the end it shall be found that the tree of Calvary has more potency than the tree of Paradise. As the nations are evangelized, I think a corresponding change will be effected in the natural world. I verily believe that the trees, and the birds, and the rivers, and the skies will have their millennium. If man’92s sin affected the ground, and the vegetation, and the atmosphere, shall Christ’92s work be less powerful or less extensive?

Doubtless God will take the irregularity and fierceness from the elements so as to make them congenial to the race, which will then be symmetrical and evangelized. The ground shall not be so lavish of weeds and so grudgeful of grain. Soils which now have peculiar proclivities toward certain forms of evil production will be delivered from these besetting sins. Steep mountains, ploughed down into more gradual ascents, shall be girdled with flocks of sheep and shocks of corn. The wet marsh shall become the deep-grassed meadow. Cattle shall eat unharmed by caverns once haunted of wild beasts. Children will build play houses in what was once a cave of serpents; and, as the Scripture saith, ’93The weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’92s den.’94

Oh, what harvests shall be reaped when neither drouth, nor excessive rain, nor mildew, nor infesting insects shall arrest the growth, and the utmost capacity of the fields for production shall be tested by an intelligent and athletic yeomanry. Thrift and competency characterizing the world’92s inhabitants, their dwelling-places shall be graceful and healthy and adorned. Tree and arbor and grove around about will look as if Adam and Eve had got back to Paradise. Great cities, now neglected and unwashed, shall be orderly, adorned with architectural symmetry and connected with far distant seaports by present modes of transportation carried to their greatest perfection, or by new inventions yet to spring up out of the water or drop from the air at the beck of a Morse or of a Robert Fulton belonging to future generations. Isaiah in my text seems to look forward to the future condition of the physical earth as a condition of great beauty and excellence, and then prophesies that as the strongest and most ornamental timber in Lebanon was brought down to Jerusalem and constructed into the ancient temple, so all that is beautiful and excellent in the physical earth shall yet contribute to the Church now being built in the world. ’93The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee; the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary.’94

Much of this prophecy has already been fulfilled, and I proceed to some practical remarks upon the contributions which the natural world is making to the kingdom of God, and then draw some inferences. The first contribution that nature gives to the Church is her testimony in behalf of the truth of Christianity. This is an age of profound research. Nature cannot evade men’92s inquiries as once. In chemist’92s laboratory she is put to torture and compelled to give up her mysteries. Hidden laws have come out of their hiding place. The earth and the heavens, since they have been ransacked by geologist and botanist and astronomer, appear so different from what they once were that they may be called ’93the new heavens and the new earth.’94 This research and discovery will have powerful effect upon the religious world. They must either advance or arrest Christianity, make men better or make them worse, be the Church’92s honor or the Church’92s overthrow. Christians, aware of this In the early ages of discovery, were nervous and fearful as to the progress of science. They feared that some natural law, before unknown, would suddenly spring into harsh collision with Christianity. Gunpowder and the gleam of swords would not so much have been feared by religionists as electric batteries, voltaic piles, and astronomical apparatus. It was feared that Moses and the prophets would be run over by sceptical chemists and philosophers. Some of the followers of Aristotle, after the invention of the telescope, refused to look through that instrument, lest what they saw would overthrow the teachings of that great philosopher. But the Christian religion has no such apprehension now. Bring on your telescopes and microscopes, and spectroscopes’97and the more the better. The God of nature is the God of the Bible, and in all the universe, and in all the eternities, He has never once contradicted Himself. Christian merchants endow universities, and in them Christian professors instruct the children of Christian communities. The warmest and most enthusiastic friends of Christ are bravest and most enthusiastic friends of science. The Church rejoices as much over every discovery as the world rejoices. Good men have found that there is no war between science and religion. That which at first has seemed to be the weapon of the infidel has turned out to be the weapon of the Christian.

Scientific discussions may be divided into those which are concluded, and those which are still in progress, depending for decision upon future investigation. Those which are concluded have invariably rendered their verdict for Christianity, and we have faith to believe that those which are still in prosecution will come to as favorable a conclusion. The great systems of error are falling before these discoveries. They have crushed everything but the Bible and they have reinforced Christianity. Mohammedanism and paganism in their ten thousand forms have been proved false, and by great natural laws shown to be impositions. Buried cities have been exhumed, and the truth of God found written on their coffin-lids. Bartlett, Robinson, and Layard, Piazzi Smyth and Flinders Petric, have been not more the apostles of science than the apostles of religion. The dumb lips of the pyramids have opened to preach the gospel. Expeditions have been fitted out for Palestine, and explorers have come back to say that they have found among mountains, and among ruins, and on the shore of waters, living and undying evidences of our glorious Christianity.

Men who have gone to Palestine infidels have come back Christians. They who were blind and deaf to the truth at home have seemed to see Christ again preaching upon Olivet, and have beheld in vivid imagination the Son of God again walking the hills about Jerusalem. Caviglia once rejected the truth, but afterward said, ’93I came to Egypt, and the Scriptures and the pyramids converted me.’94 When I was in Beyrout, Syria, last December, our beloved American missionary, Rev. Dr. Jessup, told me of his friend who met a sceptic at Joppa, the seaport of Jerusalem, and the unbeliever said to his friend: ’93I am going into the Holy Land to show up the folly of the Christian religion. I am going to visit all the so-called ’91sacred places,’92 and write them up, and show the world that the New Testament is an imposition upon the world’92s credulity.’94 Months after, Dr. Jessup’92s friend met the sceptic at Beyrout, after he had completed his journey through the Holy Land. ’93Well, how is it?’94 asked the aforesaid gentleman of the sceptic. The answer was: ’93I have seen it all, and I tell you the Bible is true! Yes, it is all true!’94 The man who went to destroy came back to defend. After what I myself saw during my recent absence, I conclude that anyone who can go through the Holy Land and remain an unbeliever, is either a bad man or an imbecile. God employed men to write the Bible, but He took many of the same truths which they recorded, and with His own almighty hand He gouged them into the rocks, and drove them down into dismal depths, and, as documents are put in the cornerstone of a temple, so in the very foundation of the earth He folded up and placed the records of heavenly truth. The earth’92s cornerstone was laid, like that of other sacred edifices, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Author of revelation, standing among the great strata, looked upon Moses, and said, ’93Let us record for future ages the world’92s history; you write it there on papyrus; I will write it here on the boulders.’94

Again, nature offers an invaluable contribution to Christianity by the illustration she makes of divine truth. The inspired writers seized upon the advantages offered by the natural world. Trees and rivers and clouds and rocks broke forth into holy and enthusiastic utterances. Would Christ set forth the strength of faith, He points to the sycamore, whose roots spread out, and strike down, and clinch themselves amid great depths of earth, and He said that faith was strong enough to tear that up by the roots. At Hawarden, England, Mr. Gladstone, while showing me his trees during a prolonged walk through his magnificent park, pointed out a sycamore, and with a wave of the hand said, ’93In your visit to the Holy Land did you see any sycamore more impressive than that?’94 I confessed that I had not. Its branches were not more remarkable than its roots. It was to such a tree as that Jesus pointed when He would illustrate the power of faith. ’93Ye might say unto this sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the roots and be thou cast into the sea, and it would obey you.’94 One reason why Christ has fascinated the world as no other teacher, is because instead of using severe argument He was always telling how something in the spiritual world was like unto something in the natural world. Oh, these wonderful ’93likes’94 of our Lord! Like a grain of mustard seed. Like a treasure hid in a field. Like a merchant seeking goodly pearls. Like unto a net that was cast into the sea. Like unto a householder. Would Christ teach the precision with which He looks after you, He says He counts the hairs of your head. Well, that is a long and tedious count if the head have the average endowment. It has been found that if the hairs of the head be black there are about one hundred and twenty thousand, or if they be flaxen there are about one hundred and forty thousand. But God knows the exact number: ’93The hairs of your head are all numbered.’94 Would Christ impress us with the divine watchfulness and care, he speaks of the sparrows that were a nuisance in those times. They were caught by the thousands in the net. They were thin and scrawny, and had comparatively no meat on their bones. They seemed almost valueless, whether living or dead. Now, argues Christ, if my Father takes care of them will he not take care of you? Christ would have the Christian despondent over his slowness of religious development go to his corn-field for a lesson. He watches first the green shoot pressing up through the clods, gradually strengthening into a stalk, and last of all the husk swelling out with the pressure of the corn: ’93First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.’94 Would David set forth the freshness and beauty of genuine Christian character’97he sees an eagle starting from its nest just after the moulting season, its old feathers shed, and its wings and breast decked with new down and plumes, its body as finely feathered as that of her young ones just beginning to try the speed of their wings. Thus rejuvenated and replumed is the Christian’92s faith and hope, by every season of communion with God. ’93Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’92s.’94 Would Solomon represent the annoyance of a contentious woman’92s tongue, he points to a leakage in the top of his house or tent, where, throughout the stormy day the water comes through, falling upon the floor’97drip! drip! drip! And he says, ’93A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.’94 Would Christ set forth the character of those who make great profession of piety, but have no fruit, he compares them to barren fig-trees, which have very large and showy leaves, and nothing but leaves. Would Job illustrate deceitful friendships, he speaks of brooks in those climes, that wind about in different directions, and dry up when you want to drink out of them: ’93My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away.’94 David, when he would impress us with the despon3ency into which he had sunk, compares it to a quagmire of those regions, through which he had doubtless sometimes tried to walk, but sunk in up to his neck, and he cried, ’93I sink in deep mire where there is no standing.’94 Would Habakkuk set forth the capacity which God gives the good man to walk safely amid the wildest perils, he points to the wild animal called the hind walking over slippery rocks, and leaping from wild crag to wild crag, by the peculiar make of its hoofs able calmly to sustain itself in the most dangerous places: ’93The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hind’92s feet.’94

Job makes all natural objects pay tribute to the royalty of his book. As you go through some chapters of Job you feel as if it were a bright spring morning, and, as you see the glittering drops on the grass under your feet, you say with that patriarch, ’93Who hath begotten the drops of the dew?’94 And now, as you read on, you seem in the silent midnight to behold the waving of a great light upon your path, and you look up to find it the aurora borealis, which Job described so long ago as ’93the bright light in the clouds and the splendor that cometh out of the north.’94 As you read on, there is darkness hurtling in the heavens, and the showers break loose till the birds fly for hiding-place and the mountain torrents in red fury foam over the rocky shelving; and with the same poet you exclaim, ’93Who can number the clouds in wisdom, or who can stay the bottles of heaven?’94 As you read on, you feel yourself coming in frosty climes, and, in fancy, wading through the snow, you say, with that same inspired writer, ’93Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?’94 And while the sharp sleet drives in your face, and the hail stings your cheek, you quote him again: ’93Hast thou seen the treasures of the hail?’94 In the Psalmist’92s writings I hear the voices of the sea: ’93Deep calleth unto deep;’94 and the roar of forests: ’93The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh;’94 and the loud peal of the black tempest: ’93The God of glory thundereth;’94 and the rustle of the long silk on the well-filled husks: ’93The valleys are covered with corn;’94 and the cry of wild beasts: ’93The young lions roar after their prey;’94 the hum of palm-trees and cedars: ’93The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon;’94 the sough of wings and the swirl of fins: ’93Dominion over the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea.’94

The truths of the gospel might have been presented in technical terms, and by the means of dry definitions, but under these the world would not have listened or felt. How could the safety of trusting upon Christ have been presented, were it not for the figure of a rock? How could the gladdening effect of the gospel have been set forth, had not Zacharias thought of the dawn of the morning, exclaiming, ’93The day-spring from on high hath visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness.’94 How could the soul’92s intense longing for Christ have been presented so well as by the emblem of natural hunger and natural thirst? As the lake gathers into its bosom the shadow of hills around, and the gleam of stars above, so, in these great deeps of divine truth, all objects in nature are grandly reflected. We walk forth in the springtime, and everything breathes of the resurrection. Bright blossom and springing grass speak to us of the coming up of those whom we have loved, when in the white robes of their joy and coronation they shall appear. And when in the autumn of the year nature preaches thousands of funeral sermons from the text, ’93We all do fade as a leaf,’94 and scatters her elegies in our path, we cannot help but think of sickness and the tomb. Even winter, ’93being dead, yet speaketh.’94 The world will not be argued into the right. It will be tenderly illustrated into the right. Tell them what religion is like. When the mother tried to tell her dying child what heaven was, she compared it to light. ’93But that hurts my eyes,’94 said the dying girl. Then the mother compared heaven to music. ’93But any sound hurts me; I am so weak,’94 said the dying child. Then she was told that heaven was like mother’92s arms. ’93Oh, take me there!’94 she said. ’93If it is like mother’92s arms, take me there!’94 The appropriate simile had been found at last.

Another contribution which the natural world is making to the kingdom of Christ, is the defense and aid which the elements are compelled to give to the Christian personally. There is no law in nature but is sworn for the Christian’92s defense. In Job this thought is presented as a bargain made between the inanimate creation and the righteous man: ’93Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field.’94 What a grand thought that the lightnings, and the tempests, and the hail, and the frosts, which are the enemies of unrighteousness, are all marshaled as the Christian’92s body-guard. They fight for him. They strike with an arm of fire, or clutch with their fingers of ice. Everlasting peace is declared between the fiercest elements of nature and the good man. They may in their fury seem to be indiscriminate, smiting down the righteous with the wicked, yet they cannot damage the Christian’92s soul, although they may shrivel his body. The wintry blast that howls about your dwelling, you may call your brother, and the south wind coming up on a June day by way of a flower-garden, you may call your sister. Though so mighty in circumference and diameter, the sun and the moon have a special charge concerning you. ’93The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.’94 Elements and forces hidden in the earth are now harnessed and at work in producing for you food and clothing. Some grain-field that you never saw presented you this day with your morning meal. The great earth and the heavens are the busy loom at work for you; and shooting light, and silvery stream, and sharp lightning are only woven threads in the great loom, with God’92s foot on the shuttle. The same Spirit that converted your soul has also converted the elements from enmity toward you into inviolable friendship, and furthest star and deepest cavern, regions of everlasting cold as well as climes of eternal summer, all have a mission of good, direct or indirect, for your spirit.

Now I infer from this that the study of natural objects will increase our religious knowledge. If David and Job and John and Paul could not afford to let go without observation one passing cloud, or rift of snow, or spring blossom, you cannot afford to let them go without study. Men and women of God most eminent in all ages for faith and zeal, indulged in such observations’97Rutherford and Thomas ‘e0 Kempis and Cecil and Hannah More. That man is not worthy the name of Christian who saunters listlessly among these wonderful disclosures of divine power around, beneath, and above us, stupid and uninstructed. Such persons are not worthy to live in a desert, for that has its fountains and palm-trees; nor in regions of everlasting ice, for even there the stars kindle their lights, and auroras flash, and huge icebergs shimmer in the morning light, and God’92s power sits upon them as upon a great white throne. Yet there are Christians in the Church who look upon all such tendencies of mind and heart as soft sentimentalities, and because they believe this printed Revelation of God are content to be infidels in regard to all that has been written in this great Book of the universe, written in letters of stars, in paragraphs of constellations, and illustrated with sunset and thundercloud and spring morning.

I infer, also, the transcendent importance of Christ’92s religion. Nothing is so far down, and nothing is so high up, and nothing so far out, but God makes it pay tax to the Christian religion. If snow and tempest and dragon are expected to praise God, suppose you he expects no homage from your soul? When God has written his truth upon everything around you, suppose you he did not mean you to open your eyes and read it?

Finally, I learn from this subject what an honorable position the Christian occupies when nothing is so great and glorious in nature but it is made to edify, defend, and instruct him. Hold up your heads, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, that I may see how you bear your honors. Though now you may think yourself unbefriended, this spring’92s soft wind, and next summer’92s harvest of barley, and next autumn’92s glowing fruits, and next winter’92s storms, all seasons, all elements, zephyr and euroclydon, rose’92s breath and thundercloud, gleaming light and thick darkness, are sworn to defend you, and cohorts of angels would fly to deliver you from peril, and the great God would unsheathe his sword and arm the universe in your cause rather than that harm should touch you with one of its lightest fingers. ’93As the mountains around about Jerusalem, so the Lord is around about his people from this time forth for evermore.’94

We need more sympathy with the natural world, and then we should always have a Bible open before us, and we could take a lesson from the most fleeting circumstances, as when a storm came down upon England, Charles Wesley sat in a room watching it through an open window, and frightened by the lightning and the thunder a little bird flew in, and nestled in the bosom of the sacred poet, and as he gently stroked it and felt the wild beating of its heart, he turned to his desk and wrote that hymn which will be sung while the world lasts:

Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll

While the tempest still is high:

Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,

Till the storm of life be past,

Safe into the haven guide,

O receive my soul at last.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage