Nature (n.) is (as the totality of creation) God's work, and yet God is not there but within the individual human as a possibility of a God-relationship which makes it possible to see God everywhere.
Nature (n.) is historical (i.e. having come into existence) but not conscious because it does not reflect upon itself or about itself.
Nature (n.) is dumb — as silly to call a language as to say what is mute is speaking, whatever sentimental ears may hear.
Nature (n.) is so compassionate that the less one has, the more one sees — a peat ditch was a child's whole world; read the most mediocre book as if the only one, and you read all things out of it.
Nature (n.) edifies because you never see the one who produced its glory; if God stood beside you and said “I made all this,” the edification would vanish.
Nature (n.) loves without distinction and then makes infinite distinctions in loving difference: the least overlooked flower asked “let me be something in myself,” and love made it more beautiful than it had dared hope.
Nature (n.) is great because it has forgotten that it was chaos — though the thought is subject to revival at any time.
Nature (n.) seems secure in time only because time means nothing at all to it; history begins only with the moment.
Nature (n.) seems insignificant and is infinitely right: hurrying past the sea on business, beware of pausing, lest you discover the persuasion in the sameness of the waves.
Nature (n.) is a great staff of servants reminding the master to worship, which it cannot do itself.
Nature (n.) feels solemn because its silence is reverence before God, so far as nature can, worship; even if God does not speak, everything keeping silent before him is as if he spoke.
Nature (n.) is all unconditional obedience: God's will is done there not merely because he is almighty, as it is among disobedient men, but because there is no other will; the sparrow falls without a sigh of protest.
Nature (n.) is nothing but God's will: a star or a grain of dust that willed its own way would that instant be brought to nothing, with equal ease.