2. Sensible objects conform to the premonitions of Reason and
reflect the conscience. All things are moral; and in their boundless
changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is
nature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the
remotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up
to the laws of life; every change of vegetation from the first
principle of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and
antediluvian coal-mine; every animal function from the sponge up to
Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong,
and echo the Ten Commandments. Therefore is nature ever the ally
of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment.
Prophet and priest, David, Isaiah, Jesus, have drawn deeply from
this source. This ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow
of nature, as to seem the end for which it was made. Whatever
private purpose is answered by any member or part, this is its public
and universal function, and is never omitted. Nothing in nature is
exhausted in its first use. When a thing has served an end to the
uttermost, it is wholly new for an ulterior service. In God, every end
is converted into a new means. Thus the use of commodity, regarded
by itself, is mean and squalid. But it is to the mind an education in
the doctrine of Use, namely, that a thing is good only so far as it
serves; that a conspiring of parts and efforts to the production of an
end, is essential to any being. The first and gross manifestation of
this truth, is our inevitable and hated training in values and wants, in
corn and meat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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