God shaped the
slope of that hill as really as though he smoothed it down with his
hand. And he who understands the methods of world building, of
landscape-sculpture, may stand in wonder and awe and reverence before
the forces that have been at work for millions of years, and are at
work the same to-day. How many men have even a conception of the
wonders of the microscopic world? To how many men do the star have
anything to say at night? A man looks at a bowlder, unlike any other
rock there is to be found anywhere in the neighborhood, and perhaps he
does not even ask a question about it; while a man who has made a
careful study of these things sees spring up before him in his
imagination that long ice age before man lived on the planet, when this
bowlder was swept from some far-off place by the glacial power,
deposited where it is, scraped on its surface by the passing of the
ice, as if God himself had left his sign-manual here, his autograph,
that he, in after- ages who might make himself capable of reading,
might understand.
These merely as fragmentary, brief hints of what it is to live in the
intellectual realm.
Go up to that realm where the intellect is blended with the emotions,
the glamour of pictures, poetry, sculpture, music, beauty of color and
form and sound. What a world this is, infinite resources of an infinite
universe, appealing to, and, if a man responds, calling out the
faculties and powers of his own nature that are capable of dealing with
these things, so that a man may feel that he is thinking over the
thoughts of God, tracing his footsteps, listening to the marvellous
music of his words! This is one of the results of self-development, if
a man is unfolding, developing himself, becoming as much as possible.
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