Nature And Man

       Come  with  me  to  the  Yosemite   Valley;  yonder  stands  El  Capitan - the   atmosphere  so  clear,  it  seems   as   though  you  might  strike it  with  a  stone.     Approach  nearer;  how  it   looms   up;  how  it  grows and  widens;  how  grand!     See  yonder   those  shrubs  in  the  crevice - shrubs?     They  are  trees,  a  hundred  feet  in  height,  three  feet  and more  in  diameter.     Do   you   see  that   bend  in  the  face  of  the  rock? That  is  a  fissure,  75  feet  wide.     Nearer  yet,  still  nearer.     It  seems  as if  you  might  touch  it  now  with  your  finger.      Stand  still  under  the shadow  of  El  Capitan.     A   plumb   line  from   the  summit  falls  fifty feet  from  the  base.     Now  look  up,  up,  up,  3,600  feet - two-thirds  of a  mile ‚Äî right  up.     How  grand  and  sublime!    Your  lips  quiver,  your nerves  thrill,  your  eyes  fill  with  tears,  and  you  understand   in  some degree  your  own  littleness.     "The  inhabitants  of  the  earth  are  but as  grasshoppers."     How  small  I  am!     I  could  not  climb  up  fifty  feet on  the  face  of  that  rock,  and  there  it   towers  above  me.      Yonder  is the  great  South  Dome,  rising  sheer  up  6,000  feet - more  than  a  mile, seamed  and  seared  by  the  storms  of  ages,  but  anchored  in  the  valley beneath.     There  are  the  Three  Brothers,   there   the   Cathedral  rocks and  spires,  there  the  Sentinel  Dome   and   the  Sentinel  Rock.     How magnificent!      See   yonder   the   wonderful   Yosemite  Falls  leaping through  a  gorge  eighteen  feet  before  it  strikes,  coming  down  like  sky-rockets, exploding  as  they  fall;  striking,  it  leaps  400  feet,  and  again it  leaps  600  feet.   More  than  half  a  mile the  water  pours  over.   What a  dash,  what  a  magnificent  anthem  ascending  to  the  great  Creator! Now  look  around  you  in  every  direction,  and  you  feel  the  littleness  of man.  Oh!  I  am  but  as  the  dust  in  the  balance,  but  as  the  small  dust in  the  balance;  but  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  and  breathed into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life,  and  made  him - not  gave  him - but  made  him  a  living  soul;  therefore  I  am  a  man,  a  living  man,  but  that is  a  dead  rock.  I  am  a  living  man.  The  elements  shall  melt  with fervent  heat,  the  world  be  removed  like  a  cottage,  the  milky  way  shall shut  its  two  awful  arms  and  hush  its  dumb  prayer  forever,  but  I  shall live,  for  I  am  a  man  with  the  fire  of  God  in  me  and  a  spark  of  immortality that  will  never  go  out.  The  universe,  grand  and  magnificent and  sublime  as  it  is,  is  but  the  nursery  to  man's  infant  soul,  and  the child  is  worth  more  than  the  nursery;  therefore,  I,  a  living,  breathing, thinking,  hoping  man,  with  a  reason  capable  of  understanding,  in some  degree,  the  greatness  of  the  Almighty,  a  mind  capable  of  eternal development,  and  a  heart  capable  of  loving  Him,  am  worth  more than  all  God's  material  universe,  for  I  am  a man  with  a  destiny  before me  as  high  as  heaven  and  as  vast  as  eternity. John B. Gough.

(Yosemite National Park and Hymn by RadiantTV)

With  other  ministrations  thou,  O  Nature!
Healest  thy  wandering  and  distempered  child:
Thou  pourest  on  him  thy  soft  influences,
Thy  sunny  hues,  fair  forms,  and  breathing  sweets, -
Thy  melodies  of  woods,  and  winds,  and  waters
Till  he  relent,  and  can  no  more  endure
To  be  a  jarring  and  a  dissonant  thing
Amid  this  general  dance  and  minstrelsy;
But,  bursting  into  tears,  wins  back  his  way,
His  angry  spirit  healed  and  harmonized
By  the  benignant  touch  of  love  and  beauty.

by Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge.

You Are God!

For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. Psalm 86: 10

The Cross by John Donne

Since Christ embraced the Cross itself, dare I

His image, th’image of his Cross deny?

Would I have profit by the sacrifice,

And dare the chosen altar to despise?

It bore all other sins, but is it fit

That is should bear the sin of scorning it?

Who from the picture would avert his eye,

How would he fly his pains, who there did die?

From me, no pulpit, nor misgrounded law,

Nor scandal taken, shall this Cross withdraw,

It shall not, for it cannot; for, the loss

Of this Cross, were to me another cross;

Better were worse, for, no affliction,

No cross is so extreme, as to have none.

Who can blot out the Cross, which th’ instrument

Of God, dewed on me in the Sacrament?

Who can deny me power, and liberty

To stretch mine arms, and mine own cross to be?

Swim, and at every stroke, thou art thy cross,

The mast and yard make one, where seas to do toss.

Look down, thou spiest birds raised on crossed wings;

All the globe’s frame, and sphere’s, is nothing else

But the meridians crossing parallels.

Material crosses then, good physic be,

And yet spiritual have chief dignity.

These for extracted chemic medicine serve,

And cure much better, and as well preserve;

Then are you your own physic, or need none,

When stilled, or purged by tribulation.

For when that Cross ungrudged, unto you sticks,

Then are you to yourself, a crucifix.

As perchance, carvers do not faces make,

But that away, which hid them there, do take:

Let crosses, so, take what hid Christ in thee,

And be his image, or not his, but he.

But, as oft alchemists do coiners prove,

So may a self-despising, get self-love.

And then as worst surfeits, of best meats be,

So is pride, issued from humility,

For, ’tis no child, but monster; therefore cross

Your joy in crosses, else, ’tis double loss,

And cross thy senses, else, both they, and thou

Must perish soon, and to destruction bow.

For if the’eye seek good objects, and will take

No cross from bad, we cannot ‘scape a snake.

So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking, cross the rest,

Make them indifferent; call nothing best.

But most the eye needs crossing, that can roam,

And move; to th’ others th’ objects must come home.

And cross thy heart: for that in man alone

Points downwards, and hath palpitation.

Cross those dejections, when it downward trends,

And when it to forbidden heights pretends.

And as the brain through bony walls doth vent

By sutures, which a cross’s form present,

So when thy brain works, ere thou utter it,

Cross and correct concupiscence of wit.

Be covetous of crosses, let none fall.

Cross no man else, but cross thyself in all.

Then doth the Cross of Christ work fruitfully

Within our hearts, when we love harmlessly

That Cross’s pictures much, and with more care

That Cross’s children, which our crosses are.

Wait And See

Wait And See
by Marianne Farningham

Be not swift to be afraid;
Many a ghostly thing is laid
In the light from out the shade.
Wait and see.
Do not live your sorrows twice;
Fear is like a touch of ice;
Faith can kill it in a trice,
Wait and see.
Why expect the worst to come?
Pondered cares are troublesome,
Joy makes up a goodly sum,
Wait and see.
Better than your wildest dreams
Is God's light that for you gleams.
When the morning cloudy seems,
Wait and see.

Immortal Light

 Richard Watson Gilder, who died in 1909, and whose dream is now reality, wrote this beautiful prayer:

O Thou the Lord and Maker of life and

 light!

Full heavy are the burdens that do weigh

Our spirits earthward, as through twilight

gray

We journey to the end and rest of night;

Tho well we know to the deep inward sight,

Darkness is but Thy shadow, and the day

Where Thou art never dies, but sends its

rays

Through the wide universe with restless

might.

O Lord of Light, steep Thou our souls in

Thee!

That when the daylight trembles into shade, 

And falls the silence of mortality,

And all is done, we shall not be afraid,

But pass from light to light; from earth's

dull gleam

Into the very heart and heaven of our dream.

Divine Discontent

 An unidentified author writes thus of discontent:

When the world was formed and the morn-

ing stars

Upon their paths were sent,

The loftiest-browed of the angels was

named

The Angel of Discontent.

And he dwelt with man in the caves of the

hills,

Where the created serpent stings,

And the tiger tears and the she-wolf howls,

And he told of better things.

And he led man forth in the towered town,

And forth to fields of corn;

And he told of the ampler work ahead

For which the race was born.

And he whispers to men of those hills he sees

In the blush of the golden west;

And they look to the light of his lifted eye

And they hate the name of rest.

In the light of that eye doth the slave be-

hold

A hope that is high and brave,

And the madness of war comes into his 

blood

For he knows himself a slave.

The serfs of wrong in the light of that eye

March on with victorious songs;

For the strength of their right comes into

their hearts

When they behold their wrongs.

"Tis by the light of that lifted eye

That error's mists are rent--

A guide to the table-land of Truth

Is the Angel of Discontent.

And still he looks with his lifted eye,

And his glance is far away

On a light that shines on the glimmering

hills

Of a diviner day.

Negative and Positive Culture

 will thereby be weeded out:

Negative and Positive Culture
 
Two fields lay side by side. Only a hedge
Which ran athwart the plain dissevered them.
In one my title lay, and he who owned
The other was my brother. Each alike
Had generous part of one ancestral lot.
And each alike due diligence displayed
On that he called his own. At early spring
Each with a shining share upturned the soil
And gave it to the sun, the wind, the shower.
Thenceforth we rested not. Busily we
wrought
And wiped our briny brows 'neath burning
suns,
Biding the time of one far-off event.

At summer's end we each one came at last
To find our recompense. Each had his own,
The end for which he'd toiled. Through all
those days
My only thought had been no weeds should
grow,
But he had plowed 'mid rows of waving corn
And in so doing killed the cumbering weeds
That grew between. And now at summer's
close
Behold ! my field was verdureless and bare.
While his was clad in vestiture of gold.
How vain my toil ! His recompense how
full.
Who reaped so much, yet plowed no more
than I!

Light After Night

 Mary Elliot interprets the moral cheer of recurring dawn in these musical lines:

Dawn of the red, red sun in a bleak, aban-

doned sky

That the moon has lately left and the stars

are fast forsaking--

The day is drawing the cloudy lids from his 

bloodshot eye,

And the world impatient stirs -- a tired old

sleeper, waking.

O most unwearying prophet, ever-returning

morn!

Thou giv'st new life to a world grown old,

and marred in making;

With ever an old faith lost, and ever a

pang new-born,

But ever a new, new hope to hearts that 

were well-nigh breaking. 

The Metropolitan. 1834

God Gives Us A New Chance

Ella Higginson, under the title "When the Birds Go North Again," sings a pretty little song of hope, illustrating the goodness of God in giving to the saddest heart a new chance for blessing and achievements.

Oh, every year hath its winter,
And every year hath its rain -
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again;

When new leaves swell in the forest,
And grass springs green on the plain,
And the alder's veins turn crimson‚-
And the birds go north again.

Oh, every heart hath its sorrow,
And every heart hath its pain -
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again.

'Tis the sweetest thing to remember
If courage be on the wane,
When the cold, dark days are over -
Why, the birds go north again.

 

The Dead Live Beyond

 The Dead Live Beyond

His is not dead, but only lieth sleeping

In the sweet refuge of his Master's breast,

And far away from sorrow, toil, and weeping

He is not dead, but only taking rest.

What tho the highest hopes he dearly cherished

All faded gently as the setting sun;

What tho our own fond expectations perished

Ere yet life's noblest labors seemed begun.

What tho he standeth at no earthly altar,

Yet in white raiment, on the golden floor,

Where love is perfect, and no step can falter,

He serveth as a priest for evermore!

O glorious end of life's short day of sadness,

O blessed course so well and nobly run!

O home of true and everlasting gladness,

O crown unfading! and so early won!

Tho tears will fall we bless thee, O our Father,

For the dear one forever with the blest, 

And wait the Easter dawn when thou shalt gather

Thine own, long parted, to their endless rest.

"Take my hand and lead me" hymn

Hope Beyond The Grave

 Hope Beyond The Grave

This night, and the landscape is lovely no more;

I mourn; but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you,

For morn is approaching your charms to restore,

Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew,

Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;

Kind nature the embryo blossom will save.

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?

Oh! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

"Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,

That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,

My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,

Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

"Oh, pity, great Father of Light!" then I cried,

"Thy creature, who fain would not wander from Thee!

Lo! humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness Thou only canst free."

And darkness and doubt are now flying away;

No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn:

So breaks on the traveler, faint and astray,

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.

See Truth, Love and Mercy, in triumph descending,

And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom.

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,

And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.

by James Beattie, LL. D.

Nearer, My God, to Thee.

from Pilgrim's Praises

At Easter

At Easter by Kate A. Bradley

I wonder if the anguished moon looked
down
Through all that long last night
And buried in her scarred breast, lean and
brown,
The memory of that sight!
I wonder of th' uneasy birds awoke
As glowed that strange, great light
Which paled the purple east where morn-
ing broke.
And sang, inspired by God's own breath,
"There is no death! There is no death!" 

There is no death, O hearts that throb in

vain

With longing, pulsing tide,

Or in love's fullness, nigh akin to pain,

Unfearing abide;

There is no death, O soul whom niggard

fate

Has left unsatisfied.

The cycles swing and joy those lips await

Who oft have sung on earth in pain,

"I rise again! I rise again!"

No sacrifice, O Self, can blot thee out,

Or satisfy the debt

Which binds thee to the usurer of doubt

With interest of regret!

Still is not life to even thee denied:

One way remaineth yet-

As was thy Christ, must thou be crucified.

But with those wounds in hands and feet,

E'en Self finds resurrection sweet!

Rejoice, O soul whose work is just begun,

That all time lies before!

Rejoice, O heart whose treasure all have

won

That dimmer, farther shore!

The stone that angels moved away that

night

Was rolled from Heaven's door;

Awake and stand forth in hope's sudden

 light,

And sing as sang the birds that morn:

"There is no death, for Life is born!"

The Basket of The Day

Pysanka Egg for Easter

The Basket of The Day by Priscilla Leonard

Into the basket of thy day
Put each thing good and each thing gay
That thou canst find along thy way.

Neglect no joy, however small,
And it shall verily befall
Thy day can scarcely hold them all.

Within the basket of thy day
Let nothing evil find its way.
And let no frets and worries stay.

So shall each day be brave and fair.
Holding of joy its happy share.
And finding blessings everywhere.

The Crescent And The Cross

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

Kind was my friend who, in the Eastern land,

Remembered me with such a gracious hand,

And sent this Moorish Crescent, which has been

Worn on the haughty bosom of a queen.

No more it sinks and rises in unrest

To the soft music of her heathen breast;

No barbarous chief shall bow before it more,

No turban'd slave shall envy and adore.

I place beside this relic of the Sun

A Cross of cedar brought from Lebanon,

Once borne, perchance, by some pale monk who trod

The desert to Jerusalem - and his God !

Here do they lie, two symbols of two creeds,

Each meaning something to our human needs;

Both stained with blood, and sacred made by faith,

By tears and prayers, and martyrdom and death.

That for the Moslem is, but this for me!

The waning Crescent lacks divinity:

It gives me dreams of battles, and the woes

Of women shut in dim seraglios.

But when this Cross of simple wood I see,

The Star of Bethlehem shines again for me,

And glorious visions break upon my gloom -

The patient Christ, and Mary at the tomb.

• ihopeministries - مَمَرّ
• Jesus calling Muslims from the passage to the garden of paradise.

Heart's Flower

"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord." Psalms 150:6

Heart's Flower

by Marion Mosbie

There grew a little flower once

That blossomed in a day;

Some said it would ever bloom,

And some, 'twould fade away.

Some said it was happiness,

And some said it was Spring,

Some said it was grief and tears

And many such a thing.

But still the little flower bloomed

And still it lived and throve,

Men do call it "Summer Growth,"

But angels call it "Love."

Lenten Thoughts by Elisabeth R. Scovil

Red, pink, burgundy colored carnations
inside of a ivy woven Easter basket.

Lenten Thoughts 

"Come apart and rest awhile."
'Tis thy Saviour's call to thee.
" From thy pleasures and thy cares
Turn aside awhile with Me."

And the Church, His Bride on earth,
Echoes still His voice to-day,
In this holy Lenten tide,
"Turn aside," she says, "and pray."

Thou did' St keep the Christmas Feast
With a glad and willing heart.
Joining in the angels' song;
In the Fast now bear thy part.

Friends and neighbors round thee press.
Thronging duties claim thy care;
Little time to thee seems left
To be spent in quiet prayer. 

Our Lord trod this busy earth,

Lived its life of toil and haste;

Knows how much thou hast to do;

Would He bid thee time to waste?

Yet He says, " Come rest awhile."

From the outward, look within,

Learn to know thyself, and find

How to conquer secret sin.

In the desert, with thy Lord,

Tell Him all thy troubles sore,

Weariness, and pain, and grief,

He has borne them too - and more.

He will pity, help, and heal,

Aid thee in the mortal strife;

Send thee back with strength renewed

For the warfare of thy life.

When His Easter morning dawns,

Having kept the fast with Him,

Joyful to His holy feast

He will bid thee enter in.