Science tells us how the
bird-music, which is one of nature's foremost charms, has risen out of
the bird's cry of distress in the morning of time; how originally the
music of field and forest was nothing more than an exclamation caused
by the bird's bodily pain and fear, and how through the ages the
primal note of anguish has been evolved and differentiated until it
has risen into the ecstasy of the lark, melted into the silver note of
the dove, swelled into the rapture of the nightingale, unfolded into
the vast and varied music of the sky and the summer. So Christ shows
us that out of the personal sorrow which now rends the believer's
heart he shall arise in moral and infinite perfection; that out of the
cry of anguish wrung from us by the present distress shall spring the
supreme music of the future.
The Persian monarch forbidding sackcloth had forgotten that
consolation is a royal prerogative; but the King of kings has not
forgotten this, and very sweet and availing is His sovereign sympathy.
Scherer recommends "amusement as a comfortable deceit by which we
avoid a permanent _tete-a-tete_ with realities that are too heavy for
us.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209