"I have shown thee, O man, what is good!" declared Micah long ago. "What doth now the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with thy God!" In "walking humbly, doing justly, and loving mercy," there is no place for worry and gloom; there is great possibility of love and much serving, and God in His goodness breaks up our reward into a thousand little things which attend us every step of the way, just as the white ray of light by the drop of water is broken into the dazzling beauty of the rainbow. The burning bush which Moses saw is not the only bush which flames with God, and seeks to show to us a sign. Nature spares no pains to make things beautiful; trees have serrated leaves; birds and flowers have color; the butterflies' wings are splashed with gold; moss grows over the fallen tree, and grass covers the scar on the landscape. Nature hides her wounds in beauty. Nature spares no pains to make things beautiful, for beauty is nourishing. Beauty is thrift, ugliness is waste, ugliness is sin which scatters, destroys, integrates. But beauty heals, nourishes, sustains. There is a reason for sending flowers to the sick.
Nature has no place for sadness and repining. The last leaf on the tree dances in the breezes as merrily as when it had all its lovely companions by its side, and when its hold is loosened on the branch which bares it, it joins its brothers on the ground without regret. When the seed falls into the ground and dies, it does it without a murmur, for it knows that it will rise again in new beauty. Happy indeed is the traveler on life's highway, who will read the messages God sends us every day, for they are many and their meaning is clear: the sudden flood of warm sunshine in your room on a dark and dreary afternoon; the billowy softness of the smoke plume which rises into the frosty air, and is touched into exquisite rose and gold by the morning sun; the frosted leaves which turn to crimson and gold—God's silent witnesses that sorrow, disappointment and loss may bring out the deeper beauties of the soul; the flash of a bluebird's wing as he rides gaily down the wind into the sunlit valley. All these are messages to you and me that all is well—letters from home, good comrade, letters from home!
God knew that some would never look
Inside a book
To know His will,
And so He threw a varied hue
On dale and hill.
He knew that some would read words wrong,
And so He gave the birds their song.
He put the gold in the sunset sky
To show us that a day may die
With greater glory than it's born,
And so may we
Move calmly forward to our West,
Serene and blest!