The best of man's work is to be seen on the surface. He, to use an expressive colloquialism, puts all his best goods in the window. The more deeply you probe and search into his manufactures, the more you see of their imperfections, and the less you see of their beauty.Take a microscope to them, and the loveliest work of art is a daub; the finest production of the sculptor is but a rough-hewn block; the greatest masterpiece is full of flaws.
Not so is it with the work of God. The superficial observer admires the stars that bespangle the heavens at night—the "forget-me-nots of the angels," as Longfellow called them; but the superficial observer cannot admire them with one half the rapture with which the astronomer almost worships them.
A little child can admire a lily; but only the botanist can fully appreciate it. A landscape painter may be delighted with a piece of mountain scenery; but the geologist sees in it a greater grandeur still.
With the work of man familiarity breeds contempt, and distance lends enchantment to the view. With the work of God the very opposite is the case. He who gazes upon the external loveliness of Nature may say: "How beautiful!" but it may always be added: "These are but the outskirts of His ways."
And when geology, and botany, and astronomy have laid bare a million million other beauties that you and I have never yet suspected, it may still be written in large letters on the title pages of all their works: "Lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways; how small a whisper do we hear of Him; but the thunder of His power, who can understand?” (Job 26:14)
Frank W Boreham, ‘The Whisper of God’ The Whisper of God and Other Sermons (London: Arthur H Stockwell, 1902), 11-12.
Image: “A little child can admire a lily…”