CHRISTIAN RECREATION by Ellen G. White

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 7, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 27.

CHRISTIAN RECREATION.

By Ellen G. White

WE are seeking for purity and holiness of life, that we may at last be fitted for the heavenly society in the kingdom of glory; and the only means to attain this elevation of Christian character is through Jesus Christ. There is no other way for the exaltation of the human family. Some talk of the humiliation they endure and the sacrifice they make because they adopt the truth of heavenly origin. It is true that the world do not accept the truth; unbelievers do not receive it. They may talk of those that have embraced the truth and sought the Saviour, and represent them as leaving everything, giving up everything, and making a sacrifice of everything that is worth retaining. But do not tell me this. I know better. My experience proves it to be otherwise. You need not tell me that we have to give up our dearest treasures and receive no equivalent. No, indeed! That Creator who planted the beautiful Eden for our first parents, and who has planted for us the lovely trees and flowers, and provided everything that is beautiful and glorious in nature for the human race to enjoy, designed that they should enjoy it. Then do not think that God wishes us to yield up everything which it is for our happiness here to retain. He requires us to give up only that which it would not be for our good and happiness to retain.

That God who has planted these noble trees and clothed them with their rich foliage, who has given us the brilliant and beautiful shades of the flowers, and whose lovely handiwork we see in all the realm of nature, does not design to make us unhappy; he does not design that we shall have no taste and take no pleasure in these things. It is his design that we shall enjoy them and be happy in the charms of nature, which are of his own creating.

Many delight in lovely paintings, and are ready to worship the talent which can produce a beautiful drawing; but where do those who devote their lives to this work obtain their designs? where do the artists get their ideas of things to put upon canvas?—From nature's beautiful scenery,—from nature, only from nature. Individuals devote the entire strength of their being, and bestow all their affections, upon their tastes in this direction. Many withdraw their minds from the beauties and glories of nature, that our Creator has prepared for them to enjoy, and devote all the powers of their being to perfection of art; yet all these things are only imperfect copies from nature. Art can never attain the perfection seen in nature.

The Maker of all the beautiful things of nature is forgotten. I have seen many who would go into ecstasies over a picture of a sunset, while at the same time they could have the privilege of seeing an actual and glorious sunset almost every evening in the year. They can see the beautiful tints in which nature's invisible Master Artist has, with divine skill, painted glorious scenes on the shifting canvas of the heavens, and yet they carelessly turn from the Heaven-wrought picture to paintings of art, traced by imperfect fingers, and almost fall down and worship them. What is the reason of this?—It is because the enemy is almost constantly seeking to divert the mind from God.