“Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee; or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?” --Job xii. 7-9. O for an understanding heart and a spiritual mind to read God’s book of nature as Job read it, deriving holy instruction from every page written on it by its Creator’s hand! We have received not only such “handwriting on the wall” of creation as Job saw, but the “interpretation thereof” in the “volume of the Book;” how diligent, then ought we to be to grow in grace and knowledge by all those means which God has so richly bestowed on us! All the objects of nature may remind us of teachings in God’s Word, if we have but the heart to receive them. The beasts of the field, the sheep and lambs, may remind us how we “like sheep have gone astray,” or may speak to us of Him who is “the Lamb of God.” The ravens tell of His care, who provides for those who are “better than the fowls;” the sparrows tell us that “not one of them is forgotten before God,” and we “are of more value than many sparrows.” The lovely lilies say to us, “Why take ye thought for raiment?” And the grass, so green to-day, so quickly cut down and withered, tells us to remember “all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.” Thus do Thou, O Lord, enable us to read thy book of Nature by thy book of Revelation Norman Macleod

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