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NATURE'S MEANING

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 29, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 39.

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NATURE'S MEANING.

By Frances E. Bolton

Have you heard a bird sing in the wood, And felt that it did you good? Have you seen a flower bloom by the way, And blest God for a happier day?
Nature is meant for divine ministration, for spiritual enlightenment. The morning that breaks so gently, sending a beam of light to our eyelids, is a revelation of God's nature.
CALIFORNIA SCENERY, No. 27.—An Irrigating Ditch. It was formerly thought that a greater part of California was sterile. People thought back about 1850 that, as no trees grew in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, nothing else would grow. But some of that same soil has since produced fifty to eighty bushels of wheat to the acre. Irrigation has done wonderful things for many parts of the State. Ditches and sluices bring the water from the mountain streams, lakes, and reservoirs, to the lower levels, where it is gradually distributed over the land. Many thousands of acres utterly barren of themselves have thus been made to blossom as the rose.
CALIFORNIA SCENERY, No. 27.—An Irrigating Ditch. It was formerly thought that a greater part of California was sterile. People thought back about 1850 that, as no trees grew in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, nothing else would grow. But some of that same soil has since produced fifty to eighty bushels of wheat to the acre. Irrigation has done wonderful things for many parts of the State. Ditches and sluices bring the water from the mountain streams, lakes, and reservoirs, to the lower levels, where it is gradually distributed over the land. Many thousands of acres utterly barren of themselves have thus been made to blossom as the rose.
How gently God does all things! How soft the morn spreads out her healing wings, Not with a sudden burst of light, but slow, As if God sent the day, and said, “Speak low, And wake my sleeping children gently, lest The light I send seem to disturb their rest”!
Of the morning the prophet says, “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord; His going forth is prepared as the morning.” This should lead us to a reverent study of the dawning as a revelation of God to our souls. Would not the children take a delight in watching the miracle of morn if directed by father or mother or friend? These mornings are new poems, new pictures day by day.
See the dew like million gems on the grass. Jesus said, “I will be as dew unto Israel.” See the lily beginning to bud and bloom. Jesus says through His prophet, “He shall grow as the lily.” See the trees throwing out roots and branches. The Christian is to cast forth his roots as Lebanon. The crocus, the daffodil, the snowdrop, the early flowers, bursting into bloom almost before the earth has broken away from the grasp of winter, tell their story of faith and courage to the soul. The rose with its thorn symbolizes the love and pang of the cross. The passion flower tells the story of the conquering sorrow. And so nature tells of revelation.
How gently God does all things! See how the delicate buds break in the spring, After their long, curled sleep, fold after fold, Touched with the dew and with the sunshine’s gold.
He who does this work for nature, will do the same for our souls, and this is the meaning of nature. “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth.” FRANCES E. BOLTON.