Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/237

 his poem on 'An Evening by the Sea,' likened to the hush of worship:

The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration.

Hebrew literature shows little trace, even indirectly, of that sympathy with Nature, which is the best contribution of what is called 'natural religion' to the inheritance of the human spirit, except when Nature is regarded in her grander and more awe-inspiring aspects, those of the thunder-cloud, the whirlwind, the raging fire, the roaring sea. Yet it is not altogether fanciful to find, in our Lord's habit of retirement to the mountain's side for prayer, His invitation to the disciples to come apart by themselves to rest awhile in a 'desert place,' His choice of the evening hour, at the setting of the sun, for performing His works of mercy, some sanction for that modern sense of the Divine beauty and mystery of Nature in her quiet aspects.

We must believe that Christ Himself was susceptible in a singular degree to those natural influences. After the intense spiritual strain of the Temptation, 'angels came and ministered to Him.' A great modern artist, M. Tissot, pictures the scene as only the