NATURE'S MEANING. No. 2.
By Fannie E. Bolton
Materialism is not overcome by the planter of the flower bed who looks only for the coming rose or pansy as a gratification of the æsthetic sense. While it is a good thing to have our children plant and reap both grain and flower, yet the real end is missed if the meaning of these gifts of God is lost sight of. Nature is an art gallery. We speak of God as the Master artist. He who goes into an art gallery, and asks some connoisseur which is supposed to be the most artistic picture, and buys it, without appreciating its merits, merely to be its possessor, has nothing in common with its author. The man who could go before the picture, and see its meaning, thrill with its inspiration, be touched with its beauty, ennobled with its life, is the man who is the true possessor of the gem of art, and most akin to its author. Life holds but one object worth striving for,—godliness. That we may attain this object is the design of the Creator and the creation. God made man in His own image, and that image now being partially erased, all God's designs bend to the reproducing of the divine image. Other things are mere circumstances. Godlikeness is the only true aim in life. We must till the soil, we must plant and harvest, and yet of these things Jesus said: “Your Father knoweth that ye have need.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” The first object is God’s righteousness. The end of life is to glorify God in your body and in your spirits, which are His. As teachers, it is ours to take advantage of the susceptibility of children and youth to the fine, true meanings of nature. Far be it from any of us to turn the children to that kind of nature study that will make them zealous materialists and skeptical scientists.” Rather let us ourselves look reverently at the display of Christ’s life, love, death, and resurrection in the things that reveal them,—in flower and thorn, in rock and river, clouds, dew, and rain, in sun and shadow, and be wise to bring our own souls, and the souls with whom we have to do, into harmony and sympathy with the divine Artist. FANNIE E. BOLTON.