There has been a good deal of discussion among learned authors about the manner in which the female ostrich manages her eggs—which, by the way, are large and heavy, one of them weighing as much as a small baby. It is generally agreed, however, that several ostriches lay in one nest, and that one undertakes to hatch them, but often covers them up in the sand and leaves them during the day, knowing that the heat of the sun will carry on the process of hatching as well without her as with her. I need only add that the ostrich is about as tall as the Belgian giant, it being between seven and eight feet high!
What do we mean by Nature?
By Nature, we mean the laws by which God works. And what are these? Have they power to plan, devise, or execute, of themselves? Have the laws of God any energy independent of him? Have they, indeed, any existence independent of him? The seed that is imbedded in the soil, shoots up into a plant. Is not this God’s work? Is there any being concerned in this but God? Certainly not. What, then, has nature to do? Nothing—nothing whatever. The Creator makes the soil, the seed, the moisture, the heat, and he gives them their quickening impulse. The stem, the stalk, the unfolding leaf, the fragrant flower, the blushing fruit, are his. He supplies and guides every particle of earth, air, water, and heat, concerned in the process of vegetation; without him, these would remain dead, inert and motionless. The seed would remain but a seed, and the shapeless elements would pause forever in their state of original chaos.
Nature, then, is not an efficient power; it is not a being; it contrives nothing, it does nothing, it plans nothing, it produces nothing. It is only a term, signifying the ways and means by which God chooses to perform his various works. Nature is but a word, used to designate the laws of the material universe. But what are laws without the lawgiver? Even if enacted, where is their efficiency without the executive power? What would be our book of statutes, if we had no government to sustain and enforce them? Instead of creating plants outright, God produces them by a certain process, in which earth, air, water, and heat are employed. This process is uniform, and we call it nature. So animals are produced by a certain established process, and this, again, we call nature.
Nature, then, and the laws of nature, are nothing more than the beaten path of the Creator; they show his footsteps, but they should never be confounded with God himself. We should never permit his works to become idols which stand between us and him, casting a shadow over his Almighty image. We should never look upon God’s works as God, nor abuse our minds by substituting the thing created for the Creator. This is mere idolatry, and the worshipper of nature as truly bows down before senseless images, as he who kneels to Baal or Moloch. Nature may, indeed, declare the glory of God, and show forth his handy-work; it may serve to raise our minds from earth to heaven; it may be a ladder by which we should climb to the skies. But he who goes not beyond nature, stays forever upon the ladder, and reaches not his proper destination. And yet, are we not in the habit of doing this? In referring the seasons to nature; in speaking of the rain, the frost, and the snow—the spring-time, with its bursting buds and flowers; the summer, with its harvest; the autumn, with its fruits; the winter, with its white winding-sheet for the death-bed of the leaves, as the works of nature—do we not lead our minds from their true Author? Do we not wrap up in the mist of words the idea that all these are the works of a being who designs, contrives, thinks, and acts?
A Vision.
“On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,
Weeping thou sat’st, while all around thee smiled;
So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep,
Calm thou may’st smile while all around thee weep.”