A cyclopædia of nature teachings : being a selection of facts, observations, suggestions, illustrations, examples, and illustrative hints taken from all departments of inanimate nature / with an introduction by Hugh Macmillan.

Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A cyclopædia of nature teachings : being a selection of facts, observations, suggestions, illustrations, examples, and illustrative hints taken from all departments of inanimate nature / with an introduction by Hugh Macmillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/576 (page 20)
    CLOUDS. The Beauty of the Clouds. The marvellous (joodness of God is seen in His making necessary and useful things also beautiful. An inspired writer has said, ‘ He hath made ever^dhmg beautiful in His time ’; and in our own country there is no season when the beauty of cloud-land does not reveal itself. And we are justified in believing that God has made the clouds beautiful for the sake of giving us pleasm’e. There is probably no department of Nature in which God has done more for the mere sake of pleasing us than iii this, and yet there is not one in which we attend less to appointed re- minders of His loving - kindness and tender mercy. No doubt the phenomena of cloud-formation are designed primarily to water the earth; to gather together the moisture from the salt sea, and from dark, unwholesome fens; to purify them by the mysterious alchemy of the sky; to carry them onward by sweeping storm or bj^ gentle zephyr, and let them de- scend gently in the mist, or steadily in the rain, which will waken sleeping seeds, and revive drooping vegetation. But all this might (possibly) have been effected if now and then an ominous black cloud had blotted out the sun from our sight, and poured down a deluge till it had spent itself, and then had left the sky glaringly bright and blue till the process required to be repeated. Instead of that, hardly a day passes but we may see in the sky above us that God is producing scenes of perfect beauty, or of glorious majesty, which so far as we know are only produced for the sake of giving us pleasure. Besides the nimbus — the rain-cloud we all know so well—what beautiful and varied scenes one may often gaze upon! ^Yhen a calm, clear even- ing follows a warm day, we see the mist gathering in the valleys, creeping stealthily and silently up the hill-sides, and rising into the air in long, low, horizontal streaks, which are made beautiful by the silent, silvery light of moon and stars. In the morning we some- times notice the scattered specks and flakes gathering together, growing and spreading into the magnificent cmnulus, stacked up in gigantic heaps, till the afternoon sun glorifies a range of sky-moun- tains, beside whose stupendous heights earth’s loftiest range is dwarfed, and whose summits are white as no fuller on earth can white them. Or when the weather is steady and fair, we see in a far higher region the lovely cirrus- cloud, light and waving as locks of hair, or tiny feathers of exquisite hue, the first to catch the splendour of the coinhig sun, the last to lose the glories of his light. Now, if God made the clouds so beautiful, did He not mean us to gaze upon them and be thankful for them ?— Alfred Roivland, LL.B. The Charm of the Clouds. Exceeding interest attaches to common- place, ordinary things. Common-place ! Look up! What is that apparition of dazzling bright- ness rising softly upon the blue sky from behi]id those tall and massive elms ? If you saw it for the first time in 30ur life, you would say it must be some celestial visitant. Is it light itself from heaven taking shape, and just softened and sub- dued to the endurance of a mortal vision ? It is nothing but a cloud ! —mere vapour that the unseen wind moves and moulds, and that the sun shines on for a little time. And now it has risen above the massive and lofty tree, and throws its pleasant shadow down upon the