W.H. Fentress: No Sea in Heaven

Receive our blog posts in your email by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.

Read the scripture, not only as an history, but as a love-letter sent to you from God which may affect your hearts. -- Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity, p. 27

Considering he was blind, the word-pictures painted by William Henry Fentress (1851-1880) are all the more remarkable. In one sermon from his volume Love Truths From the Bible (1879), he speaks of the ocean with tremendous insight into matters temporal and spiritual. The sermon is “No Sea in Heaven” (based on Rev. 21:1: “and there was no more sea”) and the extracts which follow are intended to whet the appetite for all of his sermons.

Have you ever stood by the sea? have you ever had the sense of being lost in the contemplation of its wonders? have you ever seen, and heard, and realized what it has to reveal? if so, you have been admitted to one of the grandest privileges known to the lovers of nature. It seems impossible that even the careless should pass by the sea uninfluenced: there is so much to engage the attention; so much to compel interest; a very spell, a fascination in its presence. To the thoughtful it is most impressive; unfolding to consciousness mysteries of thought and sentiment that banish the common things of life; that produce an experience beyond language to define; that give, as it were, a new being, with other motives, other powers, other ambitions. These impressions come again when the sea is far away, as we fancy that the night heavens of the Orient recur to the traveller, who has once enjoyed their sublime magnificence; as the splendors of royalty haunt the mind of an exiled Napoleon; as the awful meeting of contending armies is recalled by the old veteran, when the war has long been over, and lie is resting with his little ones about him in his peaceful home.

The sky, the forests, the mountains, all have attractions peculiar to themselves; and so has the sea. Behold the giant waves, crimsoned with sunbeams! or silvered by the light of the moon! how majestically they rise and fall ! Now raging under the lash of the storm demon, now moving in calm with long measured roll, they seem impatient of restraint, as if possessed by a spirit of life; as if some mighty force were rocking the cradle of the deep. Hear the rush of waters, the waves struggling and dying on the sands, the deep thunder of the breakers on the shore! and strangely with the deafening tumult mingle the wild shriek of the seagull and the soft note of the curlew. For miles inland upon the hush of night comes the monotone of the ocean. It is as the sound of a distant, heavy-rolling train. It is an unbroken anthem of praise to the great Creator. The beach is strewn with shells of every size, and shape, and color. Have you never kneeled upon the hard, white sand to gather these bright offerings washed up by the surf? and when a larger one was found, have listened with a child's delight to the whisper of some far off sea, laving the shores of some distant isle, or continent? These shells are nature's beautiful playthings, adorning the frame-work, in which she has placed the master-piece of her art. What a setting! what a picture! commanding the admiration not only of earth, for the hosts of heaven delight to mirror themselves in the boundless, blue expanse.

Fentress continues to expound upon the vast expanse of the ocean and its deepest depths which harbor shipwrecks, treasures, animals, caves and more, culminating in this cry: “O sea! Not only man, but thou also art wonderfully and fearfully made.”

It is thus evident, that the sea is not the source of a perfect joy. Far from it! It has features, occasions and associations which are productive of sadness and suffering. Has it beautiful shells and pearls? It has also loathesome weeds and reptiles. Has it fairy isles and safe harbors? It has also dangerous Scylla and Charybdis. Has it warm streams, that moderate climate and contribute to human comfort? It has also floating fields and mountains of ice, which are a terror to man. Do its waves appear fair and bright in the sunshine? When clouds gather and the wind spirit goes abroad, they are terrible to look upon. Is there majestic music in the roar of the surf? to the mariner whose vessel driven from its course, is hurrying toward the breakers, it is a knell of death. Does it bring to ns the treasures of India and other lands? alas! it sometimes bears away dear treasures of our hearts, and returns them no more. Hence, as we learn from our text, there will be no sea in heaven: for "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

As beautiful as the sea is to behold, Fentress reminds us that its wide expanse separates divides continents and separates mariners from their loved ones; while in heaven, there is no separation between spirits, no division between members of Christ’s body. Though at times it may seem placidly calm, the sea is a place of change with its tides which ebb and flow, and its tempests which bring such violence and danger; whereas, in heaven, there is eternal rest from this life’s storms, and peace from the contrary gales which we all experience.

O mariners on the sea of life, seeking rest but finding none; make your reckoning with a view to eternity; take the Bible as your chart; hold your course straight for the Star of Bethlehem; and in the fiercest storm, through the darkest night keep a brave heart, relying upon God: and though the voyage be long, and wearying, and beset with difficulties and trials, peace will be reached at last.
…
There will be noble strivings in heaven. The spirits of just men made perfect, will vie with each other in obedience, love and consecration to Him who loved them; who washed them from their sins in His own precious blood; who made them Kings and Priests unto God. The law of progress will demand ambition, increase, change: ambition to be holy, as God is holy; increase in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; and change by advancing in the divine image: but there will be no sea in heaven; that is, no restlessness, no discontent with what you are, and have. For earth, with all its petty cares, its fevered dreams, its nameless longings, its unsatisfying pleasures, will have passed away; the realties of the life in God, will bring to the troubled heart profound calm; the Prince of peace will give His own peace to the weary soul, and not a wave of care will ever disturb the deep serenity of that life in the bright Forever.

Our speaker puts his finger on that which troubles the mind and heart of many believers in this life: fear. And death.

Now in human affairs the possible, more than the actual, is the cause of distress. Life's fabric takes its sombre colors, more from what may be than what is. In other words, fear is the main, disturbing element to human peace: but in heaven there will be nothing of this. There, doubt, uncertainty, danger, and threatenings of misfortune will have no place. We shall know, even as we are known; we shall love, even as we are loved: and perfect knowledge and perfect love will cast out all fear. O the trust and confidence and security that will be the heritage of God's children, when gathered home; when folded at last in the Father's embrace! No sea in heaven; that is, no fear.
…
But is it not written, that "the sea shall give up the dead that are in it, and that Death and Hell shall be cast into the lake of fire?'' In heaven therefore, the daughters of music will not be brought low: nor desire fail because man goeth to his long home: nor mourners go about the streets: nor the silver cord be loosed: nor the golden bowl be broken: nor the pitcher broken at the fountain: nor the wheel broken at the cistern. There, there will be no gathering of friends at the bed-side, to be crushed with anguish at the departure of one beloved: no struggling for breath, then a marble coldness: no damp wiped from the brow; no eyes closed by the hands of another. There will be no tolling of bells; no procession in black; no speaking of the words, "dust to dust." There will be no turning away, to leave a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a husband, a wife, a child, or a dear friend to solitude and night; no going back to the house with the awful feeling, that we have no more a home; no strewing of flowers on fresh, green mounds. Thank God! there will be no church-yards in heaven. No sea in heaven; that is, no death.

Those who gaze out at the horizon may with difficulty at times discern where the sea ends and heaven begins. But those with spiritual sight are taught here to look up to the center of heaven where our Chief Pilot, who commands the winds and the waves, will navigate us home.

Jesus brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. He has gone to prepare a place, to make ready the many mansions, that where He is, His disciples may be also. Yes, to Jesus, and Jesus only do we owe our sweet hope of heaven. Heaven, that golden clime far beyond life's troubled ocean! Heaven, on whose blissful shores no waves ever break! Heaven, that land of love and loveliness! Heaven, that paradise home, where the pure in heart are joined forever! You and I have loved ones already there. We parted from them, as from our very life. The world has never seemed so fair and bright since they went away. Are we seeking for re-union in that better country? Let us then be sure to take the homeward way. Let us run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Let us fight the good fight of faith, and sing the victor's song. Let us go forth, and accomplish the voyage, marked out for us on the sea of life: not as the disciple who began to sink because of unbelief; but with unwavering trust in God, that He will not let the waves and the billows go over us; that He will direct our course aright; that He will be our guide and refuge to the last: and be assured, He will then receive us to that haven of rest, where the sorrows of the sea are no more.

Read this and other sermons by W.H. Fentress here, and meditate on such “love truths from the Bible,” for our author would have you “look unto Jesus.”

Click here to join the Dead Presbyterians Society

De Witt Talmage: Seek the God of the Pleiades and Orion

Receive our blog posts in your email by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion (Amos 5:8).

Some of Thomas De Witt Talmage’s sermons are so rich in word-pictures that they appear to us as a bright as the night sky far away from any electric lights. A case in point comes from his discourse on “The Pleiades and Orion” in New Tabernacle Sermons (1886).

A country farmer wrote this text—Amos of Tekoa. He plowed the earth and threshed the grain by a new threshing-machine just invented, as formerly the cattle trod out the grain. He gathered the fruit of the sycamore-tree, and scarified it with an iron comb just before it was getting ripe, as it was necessary and customary in that way to take from it the bitterness. He was the son of a poor shepherd, and stuttered; but before the stammering rustic the Philistines, and Syrians, and Phoenicians, and Moabites, and Ammonites, and Edomites, and Israelites trembled.

Moses was a law-giver, Daniel was a prince, Isaiah a courtier, and David a king; but Amos, the author of my text, was a peasant, and, as might be supposed, nearly all his parallelisms are pastoral, his prophecy full of the odor of new-mown hay, and the rattle of locusts, and the rumble of carts with sheaves, and the roar of wild beasts devouring the flock while the shepherd came out in their defense. He watched the herds by day, and by night inhabited a booth made out of bushes, so that through these branches he could see the stars all night long, and was more familiar with them than we who have tight roofs to our houses, and hardly ever see the stars except among the tall brick chimneys of the great towns. But at seasons of the year when the herds were in special danger, he would stay out in the open field all through the darkness, his only shelter the curtain of the night, heaven, with the stellar embroideries and silvered tassels of lunar light.

What a life of solitude, all alone with his herds! Poor Amos! And at twelve o'clock at night, hark to the wolf's bark, and the lion's roar, and the bear's growl, and the owl's te-whit-te-whos, and the serpent's hiss, as he unwittingly steps too near while moving through the thickets! So Amos, like other herdsmen, got the habit of studying the map of the heavens, because it was so much of the time spread out before him. He noticed some stars advancing and others receding. He associated their dawn and setting with certain seasons of the year. He had a poetic nature, and he read night by night, and month by month, and year by year, the poem of the constellations, divinely rhythmic. But two rosettes of stars especially attracted his attention while seated on the ground, or lying on his back under the open scroll of the midnight heavens—the Pleiades, or Seven Stars, and Orion. The former group this rustic prophet associated with the spring, as it rises about the first of May. The latter he associated with the winter, as it comes to the meridian in January. The Pleiades, or Seven Stars, connected with all sweetness and joy: Orion, the herald of the tempest.

Talmage goes on to say:

In the first place, Amos saw, as we must see, that the God who made the Pleiades and Orion must be the God of order. It was not so much a star here and a star there that impressed the inspired herdsman, but seven in one group, and seven in the other group. He saw that night after night and season after season and decade after decade they had kept step of light, each one in its own place, a sisterhood never clashing and never contesting precedence. From the time Hesiod called the Pleiades the "seven daughters of Atlas" and Virgil wrote in his Aeneid of "Stormy Orion" until now, they have observed the order established for their coming and going; order written not in manuscript that may be pigeon-holed, but with the hand of the Almighty on the dome of the sky, so that all nations may read it. Order. Persistent order. Sublime order. Omnipotent order.

What a sedative to you and me, to whom communities and nations sometimes seem going pell-mell, and world ruled by some fiend at hap-hazard, and in all directions maladministration! The God who keeps seven worlds in right circuit for six thousand years can certainly keep all the affairs of individuals and nations and continents in adjustment. We had not better fret much, for the peasant's argument of the text was right. If God can take care of the seven worlds of the Pleiades and the four chief worlds of Orion, He can probably take care of the one world we inhabit.

Truly, what a great comfort it is to place our trust in the One who creates and governs the stars, as well as the Earth upon which we live.

In your occupation, your mission, your sphere, do the best you can, and then trust to God; and if things are all mixed and disquieting, and your brain is hot and your heart sick, get some one to go out with you into the starlight and point out to you the Pleiades, or, better than that, get into some observatory, and through the telescope see further than Amos with the naked eye could—namely, two hundred stars in the Pleiades, and that in what is called the sword of Orion there is a nebula computed to be two trillion two hundred thousand billions of times larger than the sun. Oh, be at peace with the God who made all that and controls all that—the wheel of the constellations turning in the wheel of galaxies for thousands of years without the breaking of a cog or the slipping of a band or the snap of an axle. For your placidity and comfort through the Lord Jesus Christ I charge you, "Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion."

Our preacher continues further:

Oh, what a mercy it is that in the text and all up and down the Bible God induces us to look out toward other worlds! Bible astronomy in Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, in the Psalms, in the prophets, major and minor, in St. John's Apocalypse, practically saying, "Worlds! worlds! worlds! Get ready for them!" We have a nice little world here that we stick to, as though losing that we lose all. We are afraid of falling off this little raft of a world. We are afraid that some meteoric iconoclast will some night smash it, and we want everything to revolve around it, and are disappointed when we find that it revolves around the sun instead of the sun revolving around it. What a fuss we make about this little bit of a world, its existence only a short time between two spasms, the paroxysm by which it was hurled from chaos into order, and the paroxysm of its demolition.

And I am glad that so many texts call us to look off to other worlds, many of them larger and grander and more resplendent. "Look there,' says Job, "at Mazaroth and Arcturus and his sons!" "Look there," says St. John, "at the moon under Christ's feet!" "Look there," says Joshua, "at the sun standing still above Gibeon!" "Look there," says Moses, "at the sparkling firmament!" "Look there," says Amos, the herdsman, "at the Seven Stars and Orion!" Don't let us be so sad about those who shove off from this world under Christly pilotage. Don't let us be so agitated about our own going off this little barge or sloop or canal-boat of a world to get on some "Great Eastern" of the heavens. Don't let us persist in wanting to stay in this barn, this shed, this outhouse of a world, when all the King's palaces already occupied by many of our best friends are swinging wide open their gates to let us in.

There is a reason why the Scriptures call us to look heavenward, at the celestial. In the words of John Calvin, “Job's intent here is to teach us to be astronomers” (commentary on Job 9). Although given dominion over this beautiful blue globe, and called to till the ground and give a good account of our stewardship, we who are created in the image of God are called to not be satisfied with the earthly and temporal, but to long for the heavenly and eternal. We are called to seek the God of the Pleiades and Orion. Read Talmage’s full sermon on this topic and many more here, and pause to meditate upon not only the wonders of creation, especially in the skies above, but to ponder the love of our God for such as we.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? (Ps. 8:3-4)

Click here to join the Dead Presbyterians Society

Remarks on the Providence of God by Alexander McLeod

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

…what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men. — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. 1, Lines 22-26

These lines are quoted by Alexander McLeod in a 2-part essay which appeared in the November and December 1822 issues of The Evangelical Witness. The essay, Remarks on the Providence of God, is based on the words of the Psalmist:

The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all (Ps. 103:193).

In defense of what McLeod calls a “mysterious” but “undeniable” doctrine from Scripture — “divine overruling providence” — our author demonstrates that it is reasonable to acknowledge God’s providence over all, that it is a doctrine derived and proved from Scripture, and that objections to the doctrine may be satisfactorily answered.

Looking to the heavens, the seat of God’s throne, one cannot rationally see chaos as the overriding principle of the universe. McLeod points out that all nations acknowledge a God of some sort. Instead, the systemic harmony and connections found in nature speak to the creation of a wise and omnipotent Creator who reigns supreme over all. In concurrence with Romans 1, McLeod argues that all of nature is witness to this truth, that there is, and must be, a God who rules from above.

The “most conclusive” evidence for the doctrine of providence comes from Scripture. From the story of Joseph and his brothers, McLeod shows that God, without being the author of sin, was sovereign over all that happened in Joseph’s life and wrought good out of evil. From the prophecies of Scripture, fulfilled in history, he shows that God’s purposes must of necessity be accomplished though their outworking may outspan the lives of men and the duration of kingdoms, which is only possible for One who rules over time and space. He further elaborates on this by discussing the meaning of Eph. 1:11; Prov. 26:33; Luke 12:6-7; and Ps. 147:4, 17; all of which affirm that God governs the world even in the minutest of details.

After addressing several objections to the doctrine of providence, in particular the usual claim that it makes God the author of sin, McLeod goes on to leave his readers on a great practical encouraging note.

God, indeed, is king over all the earth . His power and his sovereignty are pledged in covenant by his word and his oath, in defence of the redeemed. His all-pervading providence is especially employed in their interest; and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. Murmur not at his dispensations; for the most painful afflictions act, at his command, to promote your everlasting welfare. Droop not at the remembrance of your own unworthiness; for the Lord hath not forgotten you. He that spareth not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things.

Christians! your Redeemer reigneth. He directs in providence over all the earth. While natural causes proceed to their effects in their natural course, while the moral world proceeds in its successive generations, with an agency that is voluntary. He by a supernatural power controls all causes and results, and gives to them a direction subservient to the interests of his church. The building is safe upon the rock: and the living stones of the temple shall live forevermore. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their king. God in your own nature, your husband, and your high priest, rules upon his throne. Touched with a sense of your infirmities, he will not leave you comfortless. He will guide you with his counsel and afterwards receive you to glory. Praise the Lord, O! Jerusalem; praise thy God, O! Zion, who hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all.

Read the full essay here, and consider his helpful exposition of a verse and a principle that is of the highest importance and the greatest comfort to every believer. Hallelujah, the Lord reigns over all!

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

The Natural Bridge of Virginia: An American Wonder

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

Visitors to the Natural Bridge of Rockbridge County, Virginia have been awestruck for centuries of recorded history. With ties to many American Presidents — such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Calvin Coolidge, and others — and references in American literature, including Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick — it is clear that the Natural Bridge has left a deep impression on the minds and hearts of many. American Presbyterian writers have also left a record of their impressions.

Benjamin Mosby Smith became engaged to Mary Moore Morrison (grand-daughter of the famous Mary Moore Brown, “the Captive of Abb’s Valley”), while on a picnic under the Natural Bridge in 1838, according to Francis R. Flournoy, Benjamin Mosby Smith, 1811-1893 (1947), p. 44.

Joseph Caldwell, who served as the first President of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote about his 1808 tour of Virginia the following year, in which he described the Natural Bridge.

My Dear Friend — I write this from Douthit's tavern, one mile and a half from the Natural Bridge, and thirteen miles from Lexington; having just now returned from the bridge, I had determined on giving you a concise description of this sublime object, but fearing to fall short of the truth, I have turned to Mr. Jefferson's notes on Virginia, from whence I copy the following extract. "It is on the ascent of a hill which seems to have been cloven through its length by some great convulsiun. The fissure just at the bridge is by some admeasurement, 270 feet deep, by others only 205, it is about 45 feet wide at the bottom, and 90 feet at the top, this of course determines the length of the bridge, and its height from the water. Its breadth at the middle is about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and the thickness of the mass at the summit of the arch about 40 feet; a part of this thickness is. constituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees ; the residue, with the hill on both sides, is one solid rock of limestone. The arch approaches the semi-elliptical form, but the larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the chord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have the resolution to walk to them, and look over into the abyss; you involuntarily fall upon your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it, looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head ache. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing, as it were up to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indiscribable. The fissure continuing narrow, deep and strait for a considerable distance both above and below the bridge, opens to a short, but very pleasing view of the north mountains on one side, and the blue ridge on the other, at the distance, each of them, of about five miles. This bridge is in the county of Rockbridge, to which it has given name; it affords a public and commodious passage over a valley, which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable distance. The stream passing under it is called Cedar creek; it is a water of James' river, and sufficient in the driest season to turn a grist mill, though its fountain is not more than two miles above." I felt so strongly "the emotions arising from the sublime" that I could not in plain rational language convey to you my ideas of what I had seen, so you may be well pleased that I thought of the extract. I am here informed that Mr. Jefferson, since the publication of his Notes on Virginia, which first gave celebrity to this wonder of nature, has purchased from the United States fifteen acres of land, in the midst of which stands the bridge, and perhaps no private estate in the world can produce a grander or a more surprising subject of admiration — Adieu.

William Maxwell, in his 1816 Poems, includes a tribute to this very special place.

THE NATURAL BRIDGE

Hail! to thy Bridge, romantic Nature, hail!
O! more than true what I esteem’d a tale.
How light the wonder of that magic arch,
From cloud to cloud for angel bands to march;
So lightly pois’d upon the downy air,
For Art to view with rapture and despair!
But lost in wonder, I can only gaze,
While Silence owns the impotence of Praise.

And was it then the Spirit of the Storm,
Hiding in clouds his miscreated form,
With meteor apear, that smote the rocks aside,
And bade their frighten’d pediments divide,
For yonder Naiad with her tuneful stream,
To murmur thro’? O! this is Faney’s dream.
’Twas Heav’nly Nature made the magic pile,
And own’d the wonder with a mother’s smile.

I see her now. An angel sketch’d the view,
And bade her follow as his pencil drew.
Then smiling, conscious of celestial pow’r,
She took the rock, like some wild little flow’r,
And threw it lightly o’er the craggy ridge,
And gaily said, ‘Thus Nature makes a Bridge.’

Let pensive Beauty rove beside the stream,
To sooth her fancy with a tender dream;
While the sweet Naiad, as she trips along,
Beguiles her love with sympathetic song.
Let Genius gaze from yonder dizzy steep;
Whence Horror shrinks, yet madly longs to leap;
Then spread his wings triumphantly to soar,
And bless the world with one true poet more.
Here let Religion fondly love to stray,
A virgin pilgrim, at the close of day;
And sweetly conscious of her sins forgiv’n,
Exhale her soul in gratitude to Heav’n.
For me, fair Nature, far from War’s alarms,
Stealing thro’ shades to gaze upon thy charms,
The while yon Moon slow rises o’er the hill,
And Silence listening feels that all is still;
I gaze in wonder at the view sublime,
And own the charm that holds the breath of Time.
But hark! the voice of Rapture in my ears!
An angel sings! The music of the spheres!
A present God! — I feel myself no more, —
But lost in him — I tremble — I adore!

September 13th, 1813.

David Johnson, The Natural Bridge (1860)

The testimony of Archibald Alexander appears in J.W. Alexander’s biography, The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D. (1854), in which Archibald writes of “the sublime”:

But in this same [Shenandoah] valley, and not very remote from the objects of which I have spoken, there is one which, I think, produces the feeling which is denominated the sublime, more definitely and sensibly than any that I have ever seen. I refer to the Natural Bridge, from which the county takes its name. It is not my object to describe this extraordinary lusus naturae, as it may be called. In fact, no representation which can be given by the pen or pencil can convey any adequate idea of the object, or one that will have the least tendency to produce the emotion excited by a view of the object itself. There are some things, then, which the traveller, however eloquent, cannot communicate to his readers. All I intend is, to mention the effect produced by a sight of the Natural Bridge on my own mind. When a boy of fourteen or fifteen, I first visited this curiosity. Having stood on the top, and looked down into the deep chasm above and below the bridge, without any new or very strong emotions, as the scene bore a resemblance to many which are common to that country, I descended by the usual circuitous path to the bottom, and came upon the stream or brook some distance below the bridge. The first view which I obtained of the beautiful and elevated blue limestone arch, springing up to the clouds, produced an emotion entirely new; the feeling was as though something within sprung up to a great height by a kind of sudden impulse. That was the animal sensation which accompanied the genuine emotion of the sublime. Many years afterwards, I again visited the bridge. I entertained the belief, that I had preserved in my mind, all along, the idea of the object; and that now I should see it without emotion. But the fact was not so. The view, at this time, produced a revival of the original emotion, with the conscious feeling that the idea of the object had faded away, and become both obscure and diminutive, but was now restored, in an instant, to its original vividness, and magnitude. The emotion produced by an object of true sublimity, as it is very vivid, so it is very short in its continuance. It seems, then, that novelty must be added to other qualities in the object, to produce this emotion distinctly. A person living near the bridge, who should see it every day, might be pleased with the object, but would experience, after a while, nothing of the vivid emotion of the sublime. Thus, I think, it must be accounted for, that the starry heavens, or the sun shining in his strength, are viewed with little emotion of this kind, although much the sublimest objects in our view; we have been accustomed to view them daily, from our infancy. But a bright-coloured rainbow, spanning a large arch in the heavens, strikes all classes of persons with a mingled emotion of the sublime and beautiful; to which a sufficient degree of novelty is added, to render the impression vivid, as often as it occurs. I have reflected on the reason why the Natural Bridge produces the emotion of the sublime, so well defined and so vivid; but I have arrived at nothing satisfactory. It must be resolved into an ultimate law of our nature, that a novel object of that elevation and form will produce such an effect. Any attempt at analyzing objects of beauty and sublimity only tends to produce confusion in our ideas. To artists, such analysis may be useful; not to increase the emotion, but to enable them to imitate more effectually the objects of nature by which it is produced. Although I have conversed with many thousands who had seen the Natural Bridge; and although the liveliness of the emotion is very different in different persons; yet I never saw one, of any class, who did not view the object with considerable emotion. And none have ever expressed disappointment from having had their expectations raised too high, by the description previously received. Indeed, no previous description communicates any just conception of the object as it appears; and the attempts to represent it by the pencil, as far as I have seen them, are pitiful. Painters would show their wisdom by omitting to represent some of the objects of nature, such as a volcano in actual ebullition, the sea in a storm, the conflagration of a great city, or the scene of a battle-field. The imitation must be so faint and feeble, that the attempt, however skilfully executed, is apt to produce disgust, instead of admiration.

In a letter from Charles Hodge to his wife Sarah dated May 28, 1828, written during his trip to Europe, which appears in A.A. Hodge’s biography The Life of Charles Hodge D.D. LL.D. Professor in the Theological Seminary Princeton N.J. (1880), Charles refers to the Natural Bridge (which he had visited during his 1816 tour of Virginia):

My Beloved Sarah: -- I have seen the Alps! If now I never see any thing great or beautiful in nature, I am content. I felt that as soon as I saw you, I could fall at your feet and beg you to forgive my beholding such a spectacle without you, my love. You were dearer to me in that moment than ever. I left Basel about one o'clock with a young English gentleman for Lucerne. We rode about fifteen miles and arrived at the foot of a mountain. As the road was steep and difficult, we commenced walking up the mountain in company with two Swiss gentlemen. We ascended leisurely for about two hours before we reached the top. I was walking slowly with my hands behind me, and my eyes on the ground, expecting nothing, when one of the Swiss gentlemen said with infinite indifference -- "Voila les Alpes." I raised my eyes -- and around me in a grand amphitheatre, high up against the heavens, were the Alps! It was some moments before the false and indefinite conceptions of my life were overcome by the glorious reality. The declining sun shed on the immense mass of mingled snow and forests the brightness of the evening clouds. This was the first moment of my life in which I felt overwhelmed. Every thing I had ever previously seen seemed absolutely nothing. The natural bridge in Virginia had surprised me -- the Rhine had delighted me -- but the first sudden view of the Alps was overwhelming. This was a moment that can never return; the Alps can never be seen again by surprise, and in ignorance of their real appearance.

In the 20th century, inspired by this American wonder, Robert Alberti Lapsley, Jr. wrote The Bridge of God: A Spiritual Interpretation of the Natural Bridge of Virginia (1951) [not yet available on Log College Press].

A visit to Natural Bridge may be just another American Natural Wonder seen and checked off the list, or it may be a real spiritual experience. All depends on the visitor himself, and the spirit in which he approaches the Bridge. For here is something man with all his vaunted skill could never have made. Here is something straight from the hand of the Creator.
…
That God is recognized as the workman is shown by the comments of visitors to the Bridge. An employee found a German refugee kneeling under the Bridge just at twilight in the attitude of prayer. As he approached she rose and said, “I have been thanking God that there are place like this left in the world.” Two women stood under the Bridge for a long time in silence. Finally one said, “It gives me a feeling of mightiness.” But the other replied, “It gives me a feeling of smallness.” A mother, showing the Bridge to her child, said, “See, dear, the Bridge was made by God. Man did not build it.” Said a couple from York, Pennsylvania, “Often when we visit places and see things of which we have been told, we are disappointed. But Natural Bridge surpassed all our expectations.”

That God is recognized as the workman is shown by the comments in the Visitors’ Book at the entrance. In the Gatehouse there is a large volume where visitors are invited to write their names as they leave, with any comments they wish. Most of the comments are trite and commonplace, such as “Beautiful,” “Wonderful,” “Stupendous,” “Awe-inspiring,” “Grand,” etc. But every once in a while some visitor will take the time to record in this book a profound religious experience. Here are a few examples:

A lady from Pittsburgh: “It brought me as near to Heaven as I will probably get.”

A man from Indiana: “It would be hard to find something more God-like.”

A lady from Portsmouth, Virginia: “We left in a mood of reverence.”

A mother and son from Texas: “It brought us a new realization of God’s creation, beautiful and breath-taking.”

A couple from Massachusetts: “We found it a beautiful way to worship.”

A young lady from Kentucky: “It has the atmosphere of a Cathedral, and it drew me closer to my Maker.”

A girl from Elkton, Virginia: “It lifted me into the Seventh Heaven.”

A couple from Oak Ridge, Tennessee: “It brought us in touch with the Infinite.”

A professor from Yale University: “It is religiously inspiring.”

That God is recognized as the workman is shown by the tributes of famous men and women who have visited the Bridge. Samuel Kercheval, in his History of the Valley of Virginia, speaks of it as “the most grand, sublime, and awful sight I ever looked upon.” Arno B. Cammerer, Director of United States Parks, who is familiar with all the natural beauties of America, in a personal letter to a friend says that the Bridge impressed him as “one of the most wonderful and lovely examples of Nature’s Architecture” he had ever seen. Mildred Seydell, internationally known author and writer, put her feeling in these words: “Man expresses the beauty of his thoughts by making songs and poems and pictures and sculpture, but God has expressed the beauty of His thoughts by creating Natural Bridge of Virginia.” It was Henry Clay, the great Kentucky statesman, who coined this expressive phrase, “The Bridge not made with hands,” while John Marshall described it as “God’s greatest miracle in stone.”

Over and over, we see among these extracts references to the sublime. Truly, that word perhaps best captures the elevated impression that this remarkable natural wonder of God’s handiwork in creation. The tributes to this special found in the writings of many, including these American Presbyterians, testify to beauty, power and wisdom of God.

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

The Almond Tree in Blossom: A Tribute to the Godly Father of T. De Witt Talmage

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

Thomas De Witt Talmage — “the American Spurgeon,” one of the most famous preachers in American history — was the youngest son of David T. and Catherine “Catey” Van Nest Talmage. Born in New Jersey, where his father would serve in the state legislature, the son was raised in the Reformed Church (David served as a deacon in the First Church of Raritan), and that is where Thomas began his ministry before being called to serve in the Presbyterian Church.

Engraving of the 1833 Leonid Meteor Shower by Adolf Vollmy (1889), based on the painting by Karl Jauslin.

Thomas once gave an account of his father’s experience traveling between work and home of an event that astronomers still talk about today. The horse that David Talmage was riding was named “Star.”

My father was on the turnpike road between Trenton and Bound Brook, coming through the night from Trenton, where he was serving the State, to his home, where there was sickness. I have often heard him tell about it. It was the night of the 12th and the morning of the 13th of November, 1833. The sky was cloudless and the air clear. Suddenly the heavens became a scene never to be forgotten. From the constellation Leo meteors began to shoot out in all directions. For the two hours between four and six in the morning it was estimated that a thousand meteors a minute flashed and expired. It grew lighter than noon-day. Through the upper air shot arrows of fire! Balls of fire! Trails of fire! Showers of fire! Some the appearances were larger than the full moon. All around the heavens explosion followed explosion. Sounds as well as sights! The air filled with an uproar. All the luminaries of the sky seemed to have received marching orders. The ether was ribbed and interlaced and garlanded with meteoric display. From horizon to horizon everything was in combustion and conflagration. The spectacle ceased not until the rising sun of the November morning eclipsed it, and the whole American nation sat down exhausted with the agitations of a night to be memorable until the earth itself shall become a falling star. The Bible closes with such a scene of falling lights — not only fidgety meteors, but grave old stars. St. John saw it in prospect and wrote: ‘The stars of heaven fell unto the earth even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind.’ What a time there will be when worlds drop! Rain of planets! Gravitation letting loose her grip on worlds! Constellations falling apart and galaxies dissolved!

David Talmage also served as sheriff, and worked to promote education in New Jersey. He lived a long and fruitful life (1783-1865). When he died, Thomas delivered a commemorative sermon titled “The Beauty of Old Age,” based on Ecclesiastes 12:5: “The almond tree shall flourish.”

An almond tree in blossom.

Thomas spoke of how his father shined so brightly even in old age. Even as the almond tree blossoming is a picture of the same.

Finally, I notice that in my father’s old age was to be seen the beauty of Christian activity.

He had not retired from the field. He had been busy so long, you could not expect him idle now. The faith I have described was not an idle expectation that sits with its hands in its pocket idly waiting, but a feeling which gather up all the resources of the soul, and hurls them upon one grand design. He was among the first who toiled in Sabbath-schools and never failed to speak praise of these institutions. No storm or darkness ever kept him away from prayer-meeting. In the neighbourhood where he lived, for years he held a devotional meeting. Oftentimes the only praying-man present before a handful of attendants, he would give out the hymn, read the lines, conduct the music, and pray. Then read the Scriptures and pray again. Then lead forth in the Doxology with an enthusiasm as if there were a thousand people present, and all the Church members had been doing their duty. He went forth visiting the sick, burying the dead, collecting alms for the poor, inviting the ministers of religion to his household, in which there was, as in the house of Shunem, a little room over the wall, with bed and candlestick for any passing Elisha. He never shuddered at the sight of a subscription-paper, and not a single great cause of benevolence has arisen within the last half-century which he did not bless with his beneficence. Oh! this was not a barren almond-tree that blossomed. His charity was not like the bursting of the bud of a famous tree in the South, that fills the whole forest with its racket, nor was it a clumsy thing, like the fruit in some tropical clime, that crashes down, almost knocking the life out of those who gather it, for in his case the right hand knew not what the left hand did. The churches of God, in whose service he toiled, have arisen as one man to declare his faithfulness and to mourn their loss. He stood in the front of the holy war, and the courage which never trembled or winced in the presence of temporal danger induced him to dare all things for God. In church matters he was not afraid to be shot at. Ordained, not by the laying on of human hands, but by the imposition of a Saviour’s love, he preached by his life, in official position, and legislative hall, and commercial circles, a practical Christianity. He showed that there was a such a thing as honesty in politics. He slandered no party, stuffed no ballot-box, forged no naturalization papers, intoxicated no voters, told no lies, surrendered no principle, countenanced no demagogueism. He called things by their rightful names; and what others styled prevarication, exaggeration, misstatement, or hyperbole, he called a lie. Though he was far from being undecided in his views, and never professed neutrality, or had any consort with those miserable men who boast how well they can walk on both sides of a dividing-line and be on neither, yet even in the excitements of election canvass, when his name was hotly discussed in public journals, I do not think his integrity was ever assaulted. Started every morning with a chapter of the Bible, and his whole family around him on their knees, he forgot not, in the excitement of the world, that he had a God to serve and a heaven to win. The morning prayer came up on one side of the day, and the evening prayer on the other side, and joined each other in an arch above his head, under the shadow of which he walked all the day. The Sabbath worship extended into Monday’s conversation, and Tuesday’s bargain, and Wednesday’s mirthfulness, and Thursday’s controversy, and Friday’s sociality, and Saturday’s calculation.

Through how many thrilling scenes he had passed! He stood, at Morristown, in the choir that chanted when George Washington was buried; talked with young men whose grandfathers he had held on his knee; watched the progress of John Adam’s administration; denounced, at the time, Aaron Burr’s infamy; heard the guns that celebrated the New Orlean’s victory; voted against Jackson, but lived long enough to wish we had one just like him; remembered when the first steamer struck the North River with its wheel buckets; flushed with excitement in the time of National Banks and Sub-Treasury; was startled at the birth of telegraphy; saw the United States grow from a speck on the world’s map, till all nations dip their flag at our passing merchantmen, and our “national airs” have been heard on the steeps of the Himalayas; was born while the revolutionary cannon were coming home from Yorktown, and lived to hear the tramp of troops returning from the war of the great Rebellion; lived to speak the names of eighty children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Nearly all his contemporaries gone! Aged Wilberforce said that sailors drink to “friends astern” until half way over sea, and then drink to “friends ahead.” With him it had for a long time been “friends ahead.” So also with my father. Long and varied pilgrimage! Nothing but sovereign grace could have kept him true, earnest, useful and Christian through so many exciting scenes.

He worked unweariedly from the sunrise of youth to the sunset of old age, and then in the sweet nightfall of death, lighted by the starry promises, went home, taking his sheaves with him. Mounting from earthly to heavenly service, I doubt not there were a great multitude that thronged heaven’s gate to hail him into the skies — those whose sorrows he has appeased, whose burdens he had lifted, whose guilty souls he had pointed to a pardoning God, whose dying moments he had cheered, whose ascending spirits he had helped up on the wings of sacred music. I should like to have heard that long, loud, triumphant shout, of heaven’s welcome. I think that the harps throbbed with another thrill, and the hills quaked with a mightier hallelujah. Hall, ransomed soul! thy race run — thy toil ended. Hail to the coronation!

Like an almond tree in blossom — which does so in winter, as Thomas notes (see “The Almond-Tree in Blossom” in his 1872 Sermons) — David Talmage served God well in old age, and the tribute that his son left for him is an encouragement to others, young and old, that one can hold on the starry promises, and shine all the brighter, not only in the noon-day of life, but also towards the end our days, even in the darkest of nights.

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

The flowers of spring: An appreciation of and by Cornelia Phillips Spencer

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

…WINTER, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Work Without Hope”

In the midst of winter, it may help revive the spirit to look ahead to the prospect of spring. A newly-added author to Log College Press — Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908) — was a Presbyterian author who had a special fondness for the flora of her adopted state, North Carolina. Her poetry and her paintings reflect the sense of the Creator who adorned his creation with such beauty. The Carolina lily pictured below later became the official state wildflower of North Carolina.

Carolina lily by Cornelia Phillips Spencer (photo by Ken Moore).

Spencer was known as “The Woman Who Rang the Bell,” because after the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was closed during the Reconstruction period following the War Between the States, from 1870 to 1875, she sent numerous letters to the state legislature beseeching them to reopen that institution of higher learning. Finally, on her 50th birthday, she received word that they had granted her request. In jubilation, she rang the campus bell, and composed a hymn of praise for the occasion. Spencer Hall on the Carolina campus is named in her honor.

As anyone who has lived in Chapel Hill in the springtime and beheld the dogwoods blooming, and more, can testify, the flowers of North Carolina are a special sight. In her 1866 volume on The Last Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina, she included these verses, reflective of her appreciation of the setting of a memorial which took place in the month of April.

Come, Southern flowers, and twine above their grave;
Let all our rath spring blossoms bear a part;
Let lilies of the vale and snowdrops wave.
And come thou too, fit emblem, bleeding-heart!

Bring all our evergreens — the laurel and the bay.
From the deep forests which around us stand;
They know them well, for in a happier day
They roamed these hills and valleys hand in hand.

Ye winds of heaven, o'er them gently sigh.
And April showers fall in kindliest rain,
And let the golden sunbeams softly lie
Upon the sod for which they died in vain.

A bouquet including Goldenrod and Christmas fern by Cornelia Phillips Spencer (photo by Ken Moore).

Spencer’s botanical appreciation for the beauty of nature around her was reflective of her love for the God who made the flora and fauna, and the art forms she chose to express that appreciation were reflective of the Artist who brings all to new life again in the spring. During the winter months, let us remember God’s faithfulness to bring vivid colors once again to grey landscapes. The land will rejoice, and flowers shall blossom again, to the praise of God (Isa. 35:1).

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

A poem for May Day by Boyd McCullough

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

To celebrate the first day of May, we present a poem from Irish-American Reformed / United Presbyterian minister Boyd McCullough’s autobiography The Experience of Seventy Years (1895). The book is not yet on Log College Press, but it is a fascinating read and filled with his poetic verse. The following seems to be a tribute perhaps to the fragrant Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens), a flower of delicate beauty.

To a Wild Flower

Mrs. Margaret Cameron, of Bloomington Ferry, received anonymously a wild flower of rare beauty. She suspected that it came from her sister in Wisconsin. She pressed it and put it in her album and she desired a few verses to put in with it.

Little flower of beauty rare,
From Wisconsin’s woods you came,
With perfume you graced the air.
Trailing Love’s your pretty name.

In the merry month of May
To my door your way you found,
When the singing birds are gay,
’Mong the trees with blossoms crowned.

Not a word had you to say;
Not a message have you brought;
Yet a sister far away
Came at once into my thought.

Wildwoods are your chosen spot,
In the garden bed you die;
Thus true love, which glads the cot,
From the lordly dome will fly.

When to dust you shall depart,
As from dust your sprung.
Your remembrance in my heart,
Like a picture shall be hung.

Wedded bliss was once my share,
Soon my sky was overcast.
Still my heart retains with care,
Memories of the happy past.

Heaven has lent this precious boon
To the patient, trusting mind;
Earthly glories, fading soon,
Leave a sweet perfumer behind.

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

Fisher's Blind Milton

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

Great art often begets more great art. Creation itself, that wonderful theater of God’s glory (a term used by John Calvin), of course, has inspired many scenic paintings. The poetry of the Bible has inspired poets for millennia. And the story of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden inspired John Milton to compose the epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), which he did while blind, dictating the lines to a group of amanuenses, including his own daughters. This historical fact, in turn, has inspired a number of painters to capture that moment, including Mihály Munkácsy’s Blind Milton Dictating Paradise Lost to his Daughters (1878).

This remarkable visionary work of art in turn inspired African-American Presbyterian minister and poet Samuel Jackson Fisher. In his volume of poetry titled The Romance of Pittsburgh or Under Three Flags, and Other Poems, there is one composition which pays tribute to both Munkácsy and Milton. And that is today’s verse for consideration.

MILTON DICTATING PARADISE LOST AND HIS DAUGHTER
(Munkacsy's Picture)

Blind are his eyes, yet can his great soul gaze
Through the past ages to the far-off days;
He sits in darkness, 'mid the present world.
Yet sees God's throne, and Satan downward hurled.
His the rapt vision of man's blessedness.
Of wedded love, life's crown of happiness;
The toil so sweet, the life without a fear,
Days without weariness, and eyes without a tear.
And as he sings of that lost Paradise
His face illumed as glorious visions rise.
She who would pen this bright, celestial story
Forgets her task amid that vanished glory;
Listening to him whom thoughts divine inspire,
She dreams of Eden and the sword of fire.

Oh, happy eyes! though closed to this world's light,
Yet gaining thus the higher, heavenly sight.
Teach us the power, when in life's darkened room,
To look beyond the anguish and the gloom:
Like thee, to fill the soul with visions blest.
And seeing God, upon His Word to rest;
Help us to see, though joys be here denied,
The Paradise where hearts are satisfied

The last two lines echo as a meditation and a prayer for us today:

Help us to see, though joys be here denied,
The Paradise where hearts are satisfied

The vision of Blind Milton begat the vision Munkácsy, which begat the vision of Fisher. May we enter into that vision to behold, by faith in Jesus Christ, Paradise through this vale of tears.

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

The Southern Presbyterian Review at Log College Press

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

As our friends at the PCA Historical Center, who have done much to aid students of history by indexing a valuable theological journal, have noted about The Southern Presbyterian Journal:

Published from June of 1847 through October of 1885, the Southern Presbyterian Review remains a significant publication for the study of the history, doctrine and polity of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., a denomination more commonly known as the Southern Presbyterian Church. As one of its authors, John B. Adger noted, "Running from 1847 to 1885, its thirty-six volumes cover a very interesting term of years. Political, educational, moral, ecclesiastical, theological discussions were rife in those times. The war was coming on, and the ideas that led to it stirred men's minds and hearts."

At Log College Press, we have recently add all 36 volumes to the site for your reading pleasure. This journal included writings by Southern Presbyterian giants such as John B. Adger, Samuel J. Baird, Robert J. Breckinridge, Robert L. Dabney, John L. Girardeau, George Howe, Benjamin M. Palmer, Thomas E. Peck, William S. Plumer, Stuart Robinson, Benjamin M. Smith, Thomas Smyth, James H. Thornwell, B.B. Warfield, John L. Wilson, and others. Some additional contributors found within these pages include the Irish Presbyterian Thomas Witherow, the Scottish Presbyterian William Garden Blaikie and the German-born, New Orleans-based Jewish Rabbi Isaac L. Leucht. There is a wealth of discussion, and sometimes a diversity of views, on matters such as the office of the diaconate, church-state relations, baptism, Roman Catholicism, dancing, missions, church history, musical instruments in worship, poetry, preaching, the Christian Sabbath, evolution, eschatology, and much more.

Begin your reading here, and remember that some individual articles are found on the author pages at LCP, and some are not (or not yet). Thanks to Dr. Wayne Sparkman, author and subject indices are available at the PCA Historical Center. There is a veritable treasure trove of material here to download, digest and reference at your leisure. Enjoy!

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

Eyes open to the world around you: Julia McNair Wright

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

He claimed that, while reading about nature was fine, “if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.” — Helga Schier, writing about George Washington Carver (George Washington Carver: Agricultural Innovator: Agricultural Innovator, p. 79)

If God is the author of two books, Nature and Scripture (Ps. 19), we do well to attend to both. It was said of the Presbyterian minister James L. Woods (1846-1918) that:

Mr. Woods loved God and all things that He made — the trees, the flowers and the grandeur of the mountains. To him they spoke a "various language" as he held "communion with her visible forms." It was his custom to take long walks among the mountains, sometimes spending days among their fastnesses. It was when returning to his home in Lakeport from one of these rambles that he succumbed.on the 13th of June, 1918, at the close of a beautiful day. A friend wrote: How fitting that he should fall asleep in the arms of nature (Harriet E. Jones in James L. Woods, California Pioneer Decade of 1849: The Presbyterian Church (1922)).

Maltbie D. Babcock loved to hike, especially along the Niagara Escarpment to enjoy the overlook's panoramic vista of upstate New York scenery and Lake Ontario, telling his wife he was "going out to see the Father's world". Such hikes inspired his famous poem, which later became the hymn “This is My Father’s World.”

This is my Father’s world,
and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world;
I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
his hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world;
the birds their carols raise;
the morning light, the lily white,
declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world;
he shines in all that’s fair.
In the rustling grass I hear him pass;
he speaks to me everywhere.

Another Presbyterian writer who loved nature and aimed to instill that love in children was Julia McNair Wright (1840-1903). We have taken note before of her historical fiction and biographical sketches for children. Today we take note of her writings on science and nature; specifically, those focused on teaching children to open their eyes to the world around them to the glory of God.

Among the 90 or more published writings by Mrs. Wright (which we continue to upload to Log College Press as we are able) are a number of works for or about children and science or nature. She published a popular four-volume set of Nature Readers: Sea-Side and Way-Side in the late 1880s and early 1890s; and volumes for young people on astronomy and botany in 1898.

She also wrote short articles for periodicals such as Fiddler-Crabs (for The American Naturalist, May 1887); “Shall Our Children Study Natural Science?” (for the Nashville, Tennessee Southwestern Journal of Education, September 1887); The Cultivation in Young Children, of a Taste for the Literary and Scientific (for the Boston, Massachusetts American Teacher, January 1888); and Scientific Collections: How Made (also for the American Teacher, April 1888). Several nature “dispatches” written from her home in Fulton, Missouri were published in the weekly newspaper Science. Those “dispatches” consisted largely of personal, scientific observations pertaining to creatures which lived nearby.

So many of these sorts of writings by Mrs. Wright seem to have arisen because of a deeply personal appreciation for the world around her, and a desire to share that interest and passion with young people. A love of nature is apparently contagious, and for those who may be housebound, it is worth reading over some of these writings to be stirred up in the appreciation of the world outside. Even in isolation, through windows at least, one can still appreciate the beauty of the birds, the stars, the trees, and take note of many facets of God’s creation. Reading books is fine, as George Washington Carver has said, but few things can surpass a walk in the woods or through fields or at the beach, with friends or family, and with eyes open to the glory of God in his creation.

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

Edward O. Guerrant: The Gospel of the Lilies

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

Flowers preach to us if we will hear. — Christina Rossetti, “Consider the Lilies of the Field”

Edward O. Gurreant’s devotional work The Gospel of the Lilies is a treasure of encouragement with much meat for meditation. We have extracted his first message for your consideration today. May his remarks concerning our Lord’s sermon on the Mount — a sermon derived from the very flowers planted by our Creator on that mountain — render a blessing to your soul as you read and, “consider the lilies.”

THE GOSPEL OF THE LILIES

Consider the lilies. Matthew vi, 28, 29.

The greatest preacher was the simplest. The “common people heard Him gladly,” and under stood Him easily.

This was His first sermon, His “inaugural address.” In it He states the character of His kingdom, and lays down the laws of its government, and the duties of its subjects. He shows its superiority over all that preceded it and the absolute security and happiness of all its inhabitants.

Multitudes waited on His teaching. He was the “desire of all the nations.” For four thousand years a guilty hopeless world has been expecting a deliverer. All other helps and hopes had failed. “In the fulness of time,” He came to save a lost world; to bring a race of immortals back to God; to restore order and peace to God’s kingdom on earth. It was a mission worthy of a God, and only a God could do it.

This great sermon on the mountain was His first utterance. He used plain language. He was speaking to plain people. Most of them were poor and unlearned. Their life was a hard one; a struggle for bread, long and sharp. He was speaking to multitudes who were accustomed to “walk by sight,” to depend upon their own arm for a living. The inquiry was “how shall we get bread and clothes for ourselves and children?” They saw nothing beyond the narrow horizon of a hard life, and nothing above the humble roof of their homes.

For years they had been ground beneath the heels of tyrants, and deluded by teachers who taught a false religion, without a Savior or a hope. They felt the need of something better. This was the occasion. The object was to teach them, and you, and me, a better way — the divine, the heavenly way. We need it: The old Galilean cry has come down to us — “What shall we eat?” It occupies most of our thoughts, and time, and energies. He came to show us a better way; to set the world right; to put God back in His place in our lives; to lift up the burdens which have crushed humanity for six thousand years. His great theme was to let God do our thinking, planning, and providing; to let God bear our burdens; to let Him be, what He ought to be, our Father, our Helper, our Redeemer, our “All in All.” He showed them the utter helplessness of man; the utter folly of thinking more of their clothes than of their bodies; more of their food than their souls.

Looking down into the valley where beautiful lilies were blooming, He called their attention to them, and says, “consider the lilies.”

What a scene! What a sermon! How simple, yet how sublime! He made those lilies. He painted their heavenly colors with His sunlight; He refreshed them with His dews and showers; He dressed them in colors more regal than “Solomon in all his glory.” “They neither toil nor spin.” No milliner could have made their wardrobe. God only could make it. Now let us consider:

I. God’s care of the lilies. — He made them, and planted them along the mountain, glen and stream, in field and meadow. He fed and clothed them. The wild lilies have no other provider. God alone cares for them. How well it is done. No human heart or hand can take His place. He planted them where they grow. He selected their home. They grew as He wisely ordered, by stem and leaf and flower. He watered them when thirsty, and fed them when hungry.

“They have no care;
They bend their heads before the storm,
And rise to meet the sunshine warm,
“God cares for them.
His love is over every one;
He wills their good, His will be done.
He does neglect no single flower;
He makes them rich with sun and shower,
Their song of trust is sweet and clear,
And he that hath an ear, may hear.”

You see the lesson. The maker of the lilies made you; the Lover of the lilies loves you. Will He not clothe and feed you? Are you not worth more than all the lilies? Why, then, be “anxious about the morrow?” Why, then, be afraid to trust God? How unnatural How unreasonable! How ungrateful!

This is the lesson. Trust God like the lilies, and He will take care of you. This is the life of faith, the lily life; the child life, the heavenly life.

II. Then consider God’s prodigality to the lilies. — Go into a beautiful garden and examine the flowers. What a wealth of color and shape and perfume. All colors, all shapes beautiful, all exquisite perfumes. The wealth of heaven poured out on earth. No wonder Jesus called heaven “Paradise,” the beautiful garden of God.

But that lily is only a poor soulless flower. It can never know who feeds it, or made it, or loves it. It can never see, or know, or enjoy Him. You can. This is your God, your Father. Consider what He does for the lilies, then doubt what He will do for you, His child, His image, His loved one. You can know Him, see Him, love Him and enjoy Him. How much more then will He do for you. What prodigality of love and grace and riches and honor He has for you.

See what He has already done for you. For whom did He make the lilies and the birds and the sunshine and the world? All for you. Whom did Jesus die for? Whom are angels ministering to? Whom is heaven waiting for? All for you.

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

III. Then consider God’s resurrection of the lilies. — They vanish with the summer, and the snow of winter covers the graves of the lilies, and we imagine they are dead. The wild bees seek them in vain, and the valley is desolate where they bloomed, and the children wonder where they went, but God smiles over the landscape with April sun and showers, and the lilies rise from the dead, and bloom again. This is the resurrection of the lilies. Does it teach us no lesson? Hear Him say, “Consider the lilies.”

Have we loved ones beneath the sod, and the snow, whom we call dead?

“An angel form walks o'er the earth,
With soft and silent tread,
And bears our best loved friends away,
And then we call them dead.”

And will not the God of the lilies smile on them again, and make them rise from the grave and bloom again? He says He will. “Awake and sing, ye that sleep in the dust.”

Hear Him say, “Thy brother shall rise again,” and thy mother and husband and child.

We will consider the lilies, and thank God for the beautiful lessons they teach us. The loving hand that heals the broken lily with divine surgery, will bind up the broken heart of His child.

The mighty voice that calls the sleeping lilies from beneath the snow and sod, will call our loved ones from their graves. Blessed resurrection! With beauty beyond all lilies, and life beyond all death, we will receive them again to our rejoicing hearts and homes.

When hard times come and our hearts fail, “Consider the lilies, how they grow,” and take courage. When death comes and takes our best loved ones away, then “consider the lilies,” how they rise, and rejoice that we shall meet them again

“In those everlasting gardens,
Where angels walk,
And Seraphs are the wardens.”

Click here to browse our Bookstore!

He Shines in All That's Fair - Maltbie D. Babcock

Presbyterian minister Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858-1901) lived a short life on this earth, all of his works were published posthumously, but what a treasure one can find in reading them.

One of his most famous compositions was originally written as a poem (“My Father’s World”), but was later, in 1915, set to music as a hymn (“This Is My Father’s World”) by his friend Franklin L. Sheppard. First published in Thoughts For Every-Day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1901), it is a beautiful expression of the wonder of God’s creation and a reminder that God is on the throne over this world. It was inspired in part by the view from his regular hikes along the Niagara Escarpment. Before leaving on such hikes he would often tell his secretary, “I’m going to see my Father’s world.”

The original poem is comprised of sixteen stanzas of four verses each. Sheppard’s hymn-version contains three stanzas of six verses each. Sheppard’s version is given below, but take time to peruse the original poem in Thoughts For Every-Day Living, which is a remarkable collection of devotional thoughts filled with many other precious gems. One line from Babcock’s poem is also highlighted in 2001 book by Richard Mouw, He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace.

1 This is my Father’s world,
and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world;
I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
his hand the wonders wrought.

2 This is my Father’s world;
the birds their carols raise;
the morning light, the lily white,
declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world;
he shines in all that’s fair.
In the rustling grass I hear him pass;
he speaks to me everywhere.

3 This is my Father’s world;
oh, let me not forget
that, though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world;
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King, let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad.