GOD, WHOM SHALL I COMPARE TO THEE? 281 The sages' minds bewildered grow, Deep, deep beyond all fathoming, Thy righteousness we can discern, But far from those who sinning stray? Pure souls behold Thee, and no need Thy holiness forever they proclaim: The Lord of Hosts! thrice holy is His name! JEHUDA HALEVI Translation from the Hebrew by Mrs. Henry Lucas 128 NATURE PROCLAIMS A DEITY There is a God! The herbs of the valley, the cedars of the mountain, bless Him; the insect sports in His beam; the bird sings Him in the foliage; the thunder proclaims Him in the heavens; the ocean declares His immensity ;-man alone has said, There is no God! Unite in thought at the same instant the most beautiful objects in nature. Suppose that you see at once all the hours of the day, and all the seasons of the year,-a morning of spring, and a morning of autumn--a night bespangled with stars, and a night darkened by clouds-meadows enamelled with flowers-forests hoary with snow-fields gilded by the tints of autumn,-then alone you will have a just conception of the universe! While you are gazing on that sun which is plunging into the vault of the west, another observer admires him emerging from the gilded gates of the east. By what inconceivable power does that agèd star, which is sinking fatigued and burning in the shades of evening, reappear at the same instant fresh and humid with the rosy dew of the morning? At every hour of the day, the glorious orb is at once rising, resplendent as noon-day, and setting in the west; or rather, our senses deceive us, and there is, properly speaking, no east or west, no north or south in the world. CHATEAUBRIAND ON THE GLORY OF GOD 283 129 ON THE GLORY OF GOD When we see a stately house, although we see not the man who built it, yet will we conclude thus: Surely some wise artificer hath been working here. Can we, when we behold the stately theatre of Heaven and Earth, conclude other than that the finger, arms, and wisdom of God have been here, although we see not Him that is invisible, and although we know not the time when He began to build? Every creature in loud preacher of this truth. those torches of Heaven? lanterns in Heaven to enlighten a dark world? Who can make the statue of a man but one wiser than the stone out of which it is hewn? Could any Heaven and Earth is a frame a man but one wiser and greater than man? Who taught the birds to build their nests, and the bees to set up and order their commonwealth? Who sends the sun from one end of Heaven to the other, carrying so many thousand blessings to so many ten thousands of people and kingdoms? What power of men or angels can make the least blade of grass, or put life into the least fly, if once dead? There is, therefore, a Power over all created power, which is God. THOMAS SHEPARD 130 THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God." Go out beneath the arched heavens at night and say, if you can, "There is no God!" Pronounce that dreadful blasphemy, and each star above you will reproach the unbroken darkness of your intellect; every voice that floats upon the night-winds will bewail your utter hopelessness and folly. Is there no God? Who, then, unrolled the blue scroll, and threw upon its high frontispiece the legible gleamings of immortality? Who fashioned this green earth, with its perpetual rolling waters, and its wide expanse of islands and of main? Who settled the foundations of the mountains? Who paved the heavens with clouds, and attuned, amid the clamor of storms, the voice of thunders, and unchained the lightnings that flash in their gloom? Who gave to the eagle a safe eyrie where the tempests dwell, and to the dove a tranquil abode amid the forests that echo to the minstrelsy of her moan? Who made thee, O man, with thy perfect intellect and form? Who made the light pleasant to thee, and the darkness a covering, and a herald to the first gorgeous flashes of the morning? There is a God. All nature declares it in a language too plain to be misapprehended. The great truth is too legibly written over the face of the whole creation to be easily mistaken. Thou canst behold it in the tender blade just starting from the earth in the early spring, or in the sturdy oak that THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD 285 has withstood the blasts of fourscore winters. The purling rivulet, meandering through downy meads and verdant glens, and Niagara's tremendous torrent, leaping over its awful chasm, and rolling in majesty its broad sheet of waters onward to the ocean, unite in proclaiming-There is a God. 'Tis heard in the whispering breeze, and in the howling storm; in the deep-toned thunder, and in the earthquake's shock; 'tis declared to us when the tempest lowers, when the hurricane sweeps over the land, when the winds moan around our dwellings, and die in sullen murmurs on the plain, when the heavens, overcast with blackness, ever and anon are illuminated by the lightning's glare. Nor is the truth less solemnly impressed on our minds in the universal hush and calm repose of nature, when all is still as the soft breathings of an infant's slumber. The vast ocean, when its broad expanse is whitened with foam, and when its heaving waves roll mountain on mountain high, or when the dark beauty of heaven's vault is reflected on its smooth and tranquil bosom, confirms the declaration. The twinkling star, shedding its flickering rays so far above the reach of human ken, and the glorious sun in the heavens,-all, all declare, There is a universal First Cause. And man, the proud lord of creation, so fearfully and wonderfully made,-each joint in its corresponding socket, each muscle, and tendon, and artery performing its allotted functions with all the precision of the most perfect mechanism, and, surpassing all, possessed of a soul capable of enjoying |