Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/93

Rh of the human intellect and the social advance of the human race, that most clearly indicates the exercise of divine intelligence. No doubt the illustrations of direct adaptation of the material world to man's physical constitution are striking enough, and it is these that are usually appealed to in support of a divine intelligence; but the secondary adaptations to man as a moral, intellectual, and social being, are still more striking and convincing. These adaptations, being progressive, also recognise the progressive nature of man and his higher destiny.

It may appear straining the argument too much to speak of the usefulness of the moon in developing poetical sentiment, but we have an æsthetic element in our nature which requires suitable appliances, as much as the functions of digestion and respiration. The material universe, in the midst of which we are placed, is not adapted merely to gross utilitarian purposes. It is equally fitted to cherish refined and lofty sentiment, and when a want of our nature is supplied we have a use. And how useful in this respect is the moon! Volumes might be filled with the poetry of the moon; and yet the theme is ever fresh. The poet and the painter find the subject to be inexhaustible. The aspect of nature in moonlight is so different, that we have, by the gift of the lesser light, virtually two worlds for our abode. The gorgeous sunlit scene gives way, like a dissolving view, to the milder radiance of the moon, and, as by