F 
 
 .H AS A NATURE LOVER 
 
 LAZEIX 
 
 "llf IlifllHI i
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 RABBI JOSEPH JAS I N
 
 <^L.^i-t-^»^
 
 ISAIAH AS A NATURE LOVER
 
 
 
 
 
 ISAIAH 
 
 AS A NATURE-LOVER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 By Frederick John Lazell 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Published bj; 
 
 The Torch Press 
 
 Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1910 
 
 
 

 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY 
 THE TORCH PRESS 
 
 HE TORCH PRESS 
 
 CEDAR RAPIDS 
 
 IOWA
 
 The Torch Series 
 Edited by Joseph Fort Newton
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 AS Robertson Smith pointed out, the 
 Bible, though a great nature-book, 
 has no such word as "Nature" in 
 its vocabulary. It reflects the arch of 
 the sky and the curve of the earth, moun- 
 tains and seas, rising and setting suns, 
 birds and flowers, and the witchery of 
 moonlight on the desert; but it never 
 thinks of creation as something apart 
 from the Creator. Not Wordsworth, but 
 Coleridge, in his Hymn before Sunrise 
 in the Vale of Chamouni, comes nearest, 
 among modern poets, to the Bible music ; 
 and among prose writers no one has sur- 
 passed the Ruskin commentary on the 
 19th Psalm, in the concluding volume of 
 Modern Painters, at the end of the chap- 
 ter entitled ''The Angel of the Sea." 
 The essay to follow is written by one
 
 who is not content to read what John 
 Burroughs calls "the fine print of Na- 
 ture," but who would fain interpret here 
 a line and there a verse of its God-illum- 
 ined text. He sees that because Isaiah 
 was a poet, to whom the world was a 
 song, he was thereby a greater prophet, 
 to whom the world was a parable ; and 
 he has written of the nature scenery in 
 those memorable prophetic pages with 
 the insight and enthusiasm of one who 
 loves the out-of-doors in the Bible, and 
 the great Bible of the out-of-doors^ 
 
 J. F. N.
 
 ISAIAH AS A NATURE LOVER 
 
 IN the dream-like days that lie behind 
 the doors which swing not back, the 
 choir-boys in their stalls on either side 
 of the chancel often fidgeted while the 
 white-robed minister at the lectern, be- 
 tween the choir and the congregation, 
 was reading the lessons for the day. 
 Sometimes there were interminable gen- 
 ealogies — these were usually read by the 
 curate. At other times there were un- 
 conscionably long sections from Leviticus 
 or Deuteronomy. But when the good 
 gray rector happened to read a chapter 
 from Isaiah as the first lesson, there was 
 general stillness; even the score of the 
 new and carefully rehearsed anthem was 
 allowed to lie unheeded on the stall. For 
 his vibrant voice reading Isaiah sounded 
 like the tones of the great organ in the 
 
 9
 
 chancel; sometimes majestic, as in "Cos- 
 ta 's March of the Israelites ; ' ' sometimes 
 exultant and thrilling, as in Handel's 
 "Hallelujali Chorus;" sometimes tender 
 and pleading like the "Miserere." The 
 rector had in his younger days been a 
 chaplain on a warship. When lie read 
 Isaiah's "Ocean Symphony" you could 
 hear the tossing waves come in and break 
 against the rocks. In the pastoral pas- 
 sages the tones of the good old man were 
 full of tenderness and pleading pathos; 
 it seems now they were like the tear- 
 starting strains of "The Dead March in 
 Saul, ' ' that day the old rector lay dead. 
 
 Like some sweet sparkling stream the 
 love of nature runs through all the sunlit 
 fields of song and story. Nowhere in 
 literature, ancient or modern, is it deeper 
 or more beautiful than in the literature 
 of the Old Testament — unless, indeed, it 
 be in the recorded sayings of the Supreme 
 Prophet of the New. In Isaiah it is man- 
 ifest the moment one opens the book. It 
 shines out in similes; it overflows in be- 
 10
 
 wildering series of metaphors; it is the 
 basis — next to Isaiah 's ever-present feel- 
 ing of the omnipresence and omnipotence 
 of God — of all that is grandest and most 
 sublime in that wonderful book. 
 
 Unlike David and Elisha, Micah and 
 Amos, and several of the other Old Testa- 
 ment writers, who sprang from the soil, 
 Isaiah was a child of the city, a dweller 
 at the national capital, a prophet at the 
 court. Possessing the shrewdness and 
 the sagacity of a statesman, he was a 
 privileged prophet, a favorite and a coun- 
 selor of kings. Born in Jerusalem, he 
 seems to have been schooled under the 
 kindly eye of the wise and good Uzziah. 
 After his lips had been touched by the 
 mystic glowing coal he dared to halt the 
 chariot of Ahaz and button-hole the 
 monarch on the king's highway. He 
 hob-nobbed with Hezekiah and doctored 
 him with a fig-plaster when he was sick. 
 Studying inductively his priceless legacy 
 of prophetic literature, w^e picture him as 
 a statesman with the ability of a Glad- 
 stone, a prophet with the fire and fervor
 
 of a Savonarola, and a poet with a vision 
 and mind of a Shakespeare, environed by 
 kings and prelates, lords and ladies, com- 
 prehending in the vast reach of his genius 
 all the life and learning of his times. His 
 mind was stored with the sacred litera- 
 ture of his people. He was an orator 
 filled with fire, a poet whose soul was 
 steeped in sublimity and beauty. He had 
 the seeing eye; nothing escaped his 
 vision. No detail was so small as to pass 
 unnoticed, no vision was so vast and 
 grand that he could not comprehend it. 
 Of all the prophets, he excels in the 
 grandeur and sublimity of his imagery. 
 He lifts us to lofty peaks of exaltation 
 and splendor when we read and re-read 
 his matchless words. Like Peter on the 
 Mount of the Transfiguration, we fain 
 would stay forever. His service to Pales- 
 tine was like that of Goethe to Europe : 
 
 He read each wound, each weakness clear, 
 
 And struck his finger on the place 
 And said, ''Thou ailest here, and here." 
 
 : All facts were sheaves for the harvest 
 
 i 12
 
 of his eye. Beneath his accusing gaze, 
 the sinners of both sexes must have 
 shrank like the criminals in the presence 
 of Victor Hugo's Javert! How Ahaz 
 must have squirmed in his gilded chariot 
 that day on the Joppa road, lest the pene- 
 trating eye of the prophet should detect 
 his secret determination to call in the aid 
 of Assyria ! How the stretched-out necks 
 of the daughters of Zion must have 
 drooped as the prophet's quizzical glance 
 wandered from the gold ornaments in 
 their sweet-scented hair down to the 
 gaudy girdles around their waists and 
 thence to their tethered ankles and tink- 
 ling feet. In his splendid series of terse 
 word pictures, Isaiah paints for us all the 
 details of life in the city. Crowded on 
 his canvas are not only the lines of camels 
 and dromedaries taking treasure from 
 the Holy City down into Egypt, and the 
 ranks on ranks of chariots and horses 
 moving swiftly towards the sacred hill; 
 we see also ogling women in luxurious 
 raiment, weak and wicked rulers, apostate 
 priests in idolatrous temples, the squalor 
 13
 
 and misery, the splendor and the wealth 
 and the sin, which made up the city life 
 of that day. 
 
 But he loved the out-of-doors. He was 
 a poet as well as a prophet, and he had 
 the poet's perception and enjoyment of 
 all that is sublime and inspiring in earth 
 and sea and sky. Living near the glamor 
 and the glitter of the court, like Theocri- 
 tus, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, he loved, 
 like them, to taste the freshness and the 
 joy of the open air. And he gets the out- 
 of-doors flavor into his sentences as some 
 painters get it into their pictures. Some 
 prophets there have been, standing like 
 grim gray rocks on the headlands of his- 
 tory, unsoftened and unsweetened by na- 
 ture 's ministry of beauty. But Isaiah 
 was not one of these. He had a first- 
 hand knowledge of the fields and woods, 
 an intimate acquaintance with the wild 
 creatures living in them, a delight in the 
 beauty of growing grain and in the ever- 
 varying play of sunlight and shadow on 
 the slopes of the wooded hills. He 
 14
 
 preached from no pulpit, but beneath the 
 open sky. He may have studied the 
 sacred rolls in the seclusion of his home ; 
 but his greater study was the book of 
 nature as he saw it from the hills and 
 valleys of Judea. To him this out-door 
 world was the handiwork of an All-pow- 
 erful, but a most merciful and loving 
 Creator. 
 
 So we picture him, still studying in- 
 ductively those marvelous pen pictures 
 which show us how keen was his eye, how 
 vast and accurate his knowledge of the 
 out-of-doors, how specific and intimate 
 his acquaintance with the forms and the 
 habits x)f the fauna and the flora of his 
 time. Nature was the harvest field of his 
 imagery, the vineyard of his inspiration. 
 
 Isaiah knew the physical as well as the 
 political history and geography of his 
 native land. In his marvelous mind were 
 mirrored the changing aspects of many a 
 forest-crowned hill and fruitful plain. 
 He loved the mountains, the lightning, 
 and the tempest. The grander aspects 
 J5
 
 of nature seemed to have a special appeal 
 to him. He saw in them the glory and 
 the grandeur of God. His soul reached 
 out for the beauty of the universe; he 
 gathered up beauty as some men gather 
 gold. Scenes of pastoral peace and plenty 
 filled him with a quiet joy. He prom- 
 ised such pleasures as rewards for the 
 righteous remnant of his race, as if he 
 knew that sweet serenity dwells beneath 
 the trees and that depth of life is best 
 attained beneath the far and silent sky. 
 From flower and cloud, from stream and 
 star, from the buoyant light of the morn- 
 ing and the gentle death of the day he 
 caught visions of glory and messages of 
 promise, and sent them on in winged 
 words from his high Hermon of thought 
 across the hills and the valleys of the 
 years. 
 
 In the country, as in the city, nothing 
 escapes his keen and studious eye. All 
 the activities of the folk of field and vine- 
 yard, all the changing glory of the pag- 
 eant of the year are pleasing and full of 
 16
 
 meaning to those bright windows through 
 which his mind looks out. 
 
 In terse sentences, like quick, sugges- 
 tive strokes of an artist's brush, we are 
 shown the cedars of Lebanon that are 
 ' ' high and lifted up " on the lofty range 
 of Libanus. Here and there the cedar 
 forests have been cleared, the valuable 
 timber hauled down to the coast and raft- 
 ed down to Joppa for use in temple and 
 palaces. In the clearings from which 
 the loose bits of limestone have been re- 
 moved choice vines have been planted. 
 In successive terraces the vineyards rise, 
 each with its high tower, its huge wine- 
 press, and its stone walls. 
 
 Over yonder the cedars hang over the 
 white limestone cliffs and far below are 
 the dancing blue waters of the Mediter- 
 ranean where the merchant fleet of Tarsh- 
 ish with gilded prows and purple sails 
 make a "pleasing picture" in the bril- 
 liant morning sunlight, streaming over 
 the promontory and throwing the shadow 
 of the great rocks far out towards the 
 ships. 
 
 /7
 
 Or, the day is far spent and a storm is 
 rising with the coming of the night. If 
 one "looks towards the land, the light is 
 darkened in the heavens thereof," and 
 at the base of the cliffs is heard the mul- 
 titudinous roar of the sea. How strik- 
 ingly the music of the sea is imitated and 
 reproduced in that marvelous bit of tone- 
 painting which tells us that "the I'ations 
 shall rush like the rushing of mighty 
 waters ! ' ' How clearly the roar and the 
 reverberation of the sea is in that ocean 
 symphony! It reads like a stanza from 
 Swinburne at his best. It is delightful 
 to listen to Isaiah when he speaks of the 
 sea. 
 
 One day he stands near the shore of 
 the Dead Sea and notes the black masses 
 of asphaltum cast up from the ancient 
 "slime-pits" beneath its waters. "The 
 wicked," he tells us, "are like the trou- 
 bled sea, when it cannot rest, casting up 
 mire and dirt." 
 
 In pleasing contrast to this is the vivid 
 beauty of the picture which must have 
 18
 
 been seen by the prophet from the sandy 
 and stony shore where the river Jordan 
 enters the sea of Galilee. The peaceful 
 river moves slowly down the channel into 
 the lake, and its path far into the inland 
 sea is shown by the broad belt of smoother 
 water. Beside it and beyond it, far as 
 the eye can reach, the white-capped waves 
 of Gennesareth are dancing in the sun- 
 light, a lovely expanse of blue water and 
 white foam. The memory of that pic- 
 ture must have been vivid in the poet's 
 mind when he said, in that strain of ten- 
 der pathos : ' ' Oh, that thou hadst heark- 
 ened unto my commandments ! Then had 
 thy peace been as a river and thy right- 
 eousness as the waves of the sea. Thy 
 seed also had been as the sand and thy 
 off -spring as the gravel thereof." 
 
 Supplementing the landscape view of 
 the terraced vineyards on Lebanon, there 
 are loving, detailed sketches of individual 
 vineyards. One of these forms the theme 
 of an exquisite allegory. We see the 
 vineyard on the fruitful hill. The stones 
 have been carefully taken from the soil 
 /9
 
 and piled in the fence which faces the 
 vineyard, collecting and retaining the soil 
 brought down from above by the rains. 
 The vineyard is planted with the choicest 
 vines; they should grow clusters weigh- 
 ing ten or twelve pounds and grapes as 
 large as prunes. Or some of them may 
 be the famous white grapes, the celebrat- 
 ed ' ' vine of Sorek. ' ' In the midst of the 
 vineyard is the stone watch-tower, fifteen 
 or twenty-five feet high, where the keeper 
 of the vineyard is stationed to protect the 
 fruit from small boys and other thieves. 
 Hewn out of the solid rock is the wine- 
 press, into which the black and red grapes 
 are thrown by the gatherers. Their 
 hands and their linen garments are dyed 
 red with the blood of the grapes. There 
 is singing in the vineyard and shouts of 
 rejoicing as the treaders tread out the 
 wine in the press. Flowing in a crimson 
 stream, the blood of the grapes is caught 
 in huge stone vessels and carried away for 
 sale or for storage. 
 
 Would we see the fields and the farm 
 20
 
 operations of Palestine? In the picture 
 galleries of Isaiah are shown all the sea- 
 sonal landscapes. Here is a stubblefield, 
 thick with the straw of last year's crop. 
 Now the fire and smoke sweep across the 
 stubble as the farmer burns it to add to 
 the fertility of the lands. Here is the 
 next picture — • a farmer plowing with a 
 yoke of oxen. They tire and slacken their 
 pace ; he urges them forward with a 
 scourge. Behind him are men with hoes 
 to break the clods. When the ground 
 becomes level and fit the farmer sows the 
 "ketzakh," or rape seed, grown for its 
 oil. In the best places he puts in his 
 wheat and his barley. In still another 
 place he casts the aromatic cummin. 
 Along the edges of the field he scatters 
 the spelt. The season advances, and in 
 June the yellow fields of grain, separat- 
 ed by green patches of herbs and dotted 
 with olive trees and umbrageous oaks, 
 make a varied and lovely landscape. The 
 harvest comes and the farmer and his 
 men are in the grain fields with their 
 reaping hooks; they encompass the 
 21
 
 standing grain with the hollow of their 
 left arms and cut off the bearded heads. 
 They drink and are refreshed and the 
 gleaners drink with them. 
 
 We see the grain on the threshing floor. 
 The rape-seed, or fennel-flower, is beaten 
 out lightly with a staff. The cummin, 
 which is to be used by the cooks for con- 
 diment, is threshed out with a flail. Now 
 bring on the wheat and the barley. Round 
 and round go the unmuzzled oxen, pull- 
 ing the corn-drag which jostles and beats 
 the plump kernels from the straw. When 
 the process has been carried on long 
 enough — not too long lest the grain be 
 bruised — the winnowers come on. With 
 short shovels and fans they toss the grain 
 in the air to cleanse it from the chaff. 
 Then the horses and the carts carry the 
 grain away. Every detail of this process 
 gives the prophet great delight. ''This 
 also," he says, "cometh forth from the 
 Lord." Walt Whitman or John Millais 
 was not more interested in the men of 
 the field and their work. 
 
 22
 
 Travelers tell us that the downs of 
 Bethlehem in early February, after the 
 abundant rains of winter and early 
 spring, are one spangled carpet of bril- 
 liant flowers ; but before the end of May 
 all traces of verdure have disappeared. 
 In the valley of the Jordan about the 
 time of the ''latter rains" in March 
 there is a deep, solid growth of clovers 
 and grasses, all aglow with daisies, lilies, 
 lupins, and especially ablaze with scarlet 
 flowers such as tulips and poppies. Then 
 the latter rains cease, the period of 
 drouth begins, lasting from the end of 
 March until the ''early rains" come in 
 the autumn. By the middle of June the 
 valley of the Jordan is baked brown; a 
 hard, gaping, famishing plain, where 
 there is no green thing. 
 
 These annual scenes the Psalmist had 
 in mind when he said that the ungodly 
 should consume away like "the splendor 
 of the meadows ' ' — not ' ' the fat of 
 lambs ' ' as the translator has rend«,^red it. 
 
 These same scenes give Isaiah the 
 thought: "All flesh is grass and the 
 23
 
 goodliness thereof as the flower of the 
 field. The grass withereth and the flow- 
 er fadeth, but the word of our God shall 
 stand forever." 
 
 At the head of the valley, where the 
 soil is thinner, the withering of the grass 
 and the fading of the flowers are first 
 apparent. Farther dow^n the valley there 
 are still verdure and beauty. So Samaria, 
 besieged and about to be sacked by Sar- 
 gon, ' ' the glorious beauty which is on the 
 head of the fat valley" is likened to ''a 
 fading flower" and as "the hasty fruit 
 before the summer; which when he that 
 looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in 
 his hand, he eateth it up. ' ' 
 
 In the great picture gallery of Isaiah 
 the two chief canvasses face each other, 
 like panoramas contrasted as a study for 
 all the generations to come. One side 
 might be entitled ' ' Wickedness, War, and 
 Famine;" the other, "Righteousness, 
 Peace, and Plenty. ' ' One shows the land 
 overriden by its enemies and stricken 
 with a drouth; the other invites us to 
 24
 
 behold the nation at peace and the cli- 
 mate at its best. 
 
 In the first huge panorama a procession 
 of camels and dromedaries winds slowly 
 down towards Egypt. At the hump of 
 each of the camels is a package of treas- 
 ure as an offering to Egypt. It is in 
 vain. Egypt sitteth still. Whirling in- 
 to the choicest valleys of the chosen land 
 come the war chariots of Assyria. The 
 horses have hoofs like flints — Shakes- 
 peare, also, was quick to note the points 
 of a horse. None is weary; none stum- 
 bles. The warriors lay waste the cities, 
 despoil the vineyards, pillage the farms, 
 drive off the herds. They fire the forests 
 and the smoke of the burning thickets 
 rolls up towards the sky. Lebanon is 
 filled with flame and smoke. Its might- 
 iest trees are destroyed. 
 
 Famine follows. The rivers languish 
 and fail, sand-bars and rocks make is- 
 lands in their beds. The anglers lament 
 because their pastime is no more, and the 
 fishermen with their nets are dismayed 
 because their means of livelihood is taken 
 25
 
 away. The fish die as the waters are 
 dried up and their decay pollutes the air. 
 The streams in the volcanic valleys cease 
 to flow ; their bituminous beds are turned 
 to pitch. The bits of brimstone lying 
 around the Dead Sea are changed by the 
 concentrated heat into a sulphurous, 
 choking dust. The pelican screams from 
 the shore, the bittern booms from the 
 withering reeds and flags by Jordan and 
 Gennessareth, but there is no human ear 
 to hear them. 
 
 Where proud palaces once stood, net- 
 tles and briers grow amid the heaps of 
 ruins. Here the wildest beasts have 
 their lairs, the ruined forts and towers 
 are their dens. So remote from all hu- 
 man intrusion is the place that it is a 
 ''joy" for the keen-scented wild asses, 
 always quick to scent the approach of 
 man and to flee from him. The plaintive 
 note of the mourning dove is heard, as if 
 the bird were sore distressed. The birds 
 of darkness and desolation, the great owl, 
 the screech owl, the vulture, the raven, 
 make their nests, they lay their eggs and 
 26
 
 hatch them; there is none to disturb 
 them, none cometh to build up the ruined 
 cities. The fences of the vineyards are 
 broken down, the vines are trampled, the 
 vineyard is overgrown with briars. Utter 
 solitude prevails where once the grapes 
 were gathered amid shouts and song. 
 
 In the fields the hay withereth, the 
 grass faileth, the corn is blasted before 
 it is grown up, there is no green thing. 
 Sharon is a wilderness, Lebanon is hewn 
 down and ashamed. The poor and needy 
 seek water and there is none; their 
 tongues are parched and swollen, they 
 cannot talk. The leaves wither and fall 
 from the trees, the fruits shrivel and 
 drop before their time on the browned 
 and burning earth. 
 
 There is no traffic along the highways. 
 They are choked with the thickets of 
 thorn-trees, tangles of branches, thistles, 
 and deadly night-shade. In these tan- 
 gles hide ravenous beasts. In the mari- 
 time plain the garden is dead and deso- 
 late; it is like Swinburne's "ghost of a 
 garden which fronts the sea. ' ' From the 
 27
 
 hot sand leaps the poisonous little viper 
 — the ' ' fiery flying serpent ' ' — and the 
 yellow-streaked serpent is one of the hor- 
 rors of the night. 
 
 Turn to the other great panoramic pic- 
 ture. How beautiful it is, at the first 
 glance! The rains have fallen, the 
 parched ground has become a pool. 
 Green reeds and rushes rise from the 
 place where the lion had his lair. They 
 bend and wave over the sweet water, 
 they are thick and lush with greenness. 
 How refreshing is the cool green after 
 the arid brown! The trees are decked 
 with new beauty. The planted ash is 
 nourished by the rain, the leaves of the 
 oak wave and flutter in the breeze, as if 
 the trees were clapping their hands for 
 joy. In the desert the box tree springs 
 up, the myrtle and the acacia are bloom- 
 ing again. The verdure and the flowers 
 have come once more, the desert rejoices 
 and blossoms as the rose. Isaiah thinks 
 it must be as beautiful as "Eden" and 
 "The Garden of the Lord." 
 28
 
 No one is thirsty. Springs of water 
 are flowing from the rocks, fountains are 
 opened in the midst of the valleys. The 
 gardens are re-planted and to them are 
 brought streams of water from the rivers 
 and the hills. In large pastures the cat- 
 tle are feeding and in the unmolested 
 sheepfolds the shepherd is tenderly car- 
 ing for his sheep. Again there is glory 
 on Lebanon and ''excellency" on Car- 
 mel and in Sharon. 
 
 The wild beasts have gone, the hus- 
 bandman is sowing beside all waters, and 
 sending forth thither the feet of the oxen. 
 When they return from their labor there 
 is clean and winnowed provender for 
 them, for plenty has returned to the 
 land. The corn grows so fast and fine 
 that the fields look like a young forest. 
 
 The highways are restored and the ex- 
 iles return over them with thanksgiving 
 and singing. The vineyards are replant- 
 ed and the righteous remnant of Judah 
 are sitting beneath the vines, feasting on 
 the fruit made plump by the timely rains 
 and purpled by the kisses of the sun. 
 
 29
 
 Such is the picture Isaiah paints as the 
 best incentive and the greatest reward 
 of righteousness. Not gold, not splendid 
 cities and big armies. Pastoral peace 
 and plenty are lovingly portrayed as the 
 rich reward for the righteous remnant of 
 Judah which is to be divinely used for 
 the ultimate salvation of the world. 
 
 Little snapshot nature pictures abound 
 in Isaiah's imagery. Here is one of a 
 bunch of dogs, spoiled dogs, overfed, 
 sleeping in the sun. One of them partly 
 opens a drowsy eye at the stranger. But 
 they are all fat, gorged, and lazy. They 
 are dumb dogs ; they cannot bark. 
 
 Here is another, a picture of a young 
 lion among the sheep. Hastily called to 
 help the owner, a multitude of shepherds 
 are running towards the lion with sticks 
 and stones, yelling to scare him away 
 from the sheep beneath his paw. Under 
 these circumstances a wary old lion 
 would hasten to get back to his den. But 
 this is a young lion, '^ roaring on his 
 30
 
 prey," and he is ''not afraid of their 
 
 voice. ' ' 
 
 "We expect to find pictures showing 
 the land of Judah in the flood season; 
 and Isaiah has them. Sweeping down 
 the valley come the waters of the swollen 
 Jordan. The channel is overfilled, the 
 river overflows its banks and goes over 
 into the valley; soon it is up to a man's 
 neck. Rushing swiftly onward the broad 
 expanse of water deals death and desola- 
 tion. So, says the prophet, shall be the 
 coming of the army of Assyria. 
 
 The little picture in xviii, 4, has an 
 atmosphere like a Corot. Green clovers, 
 spangled with flow^ers, are drenched with 
 the morning dew ; as in Omar Khayyam's 
 time, "the tulip from her morning cup 
 of heavenly vintage from the soil looks 
 up." The ''clear heat" of the rising 
 sun makes mist of the dew and veils the 
 distant landscape with purple loveliness. 
 
 Especially vivid is the picture of the 
 olive tree, shaken by the owner of the 
 grove. It is not a large tree; see, he 
 
 31
 
 grasps the main stem and shakes the 
 whole tree top ! The olives rain down. 
 Another shake and all of them are down 
 save only two or three ' ' in the top of the 
 uppermost bough, four or five in the out- 
 most fruitful branches." 
 
 Other little nature pictures which hang 
 on the mental walls of him who has read 
 Isaiah carefully are the lonely old booth 
 in the deserted vineyard, and the sprawl- 
 ing, ramshackle old lodge made of olean- 
 der branches in the isolated garden of cu- 
 cumbers. The shadow of the great rock 
 in the weary land is more widely known. 
 Full of beauty and depth of meaning, it 
 is one of the great word-pictures of the 
 world. 
 
 Isaiah must have been a lover of the 
 trees, so many are the tree pictures he 
 paints. Reading his reference to the oaks, 
 one feels that he must have known and 
 loved some handsome, majestic old oak, 
 like that which was pointed out to Phillips 
 Brooks at Mamre as "Abraham's Oak." 
 Perhaps it was while sitting beneath such 
 32
 
 a tree that there flashed into his mind that 
 beautiful simile : ' ' As the days of a tree 
 are the days of my people. ' ' Every real 
 lover of old trees has had a similar feel- 
 ing. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who meas- 
 ured and loved all the big trees in his 
 neighborhood, wrote: 
 There's nothing on earth that keeps its 
 
 youth 
 So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 
 
 And John Muir, describing the Se- 
 quoias of the Sierras, says : * ' As far as 
 man is concerned they are the same yes- 
 terday, today and forever, emblems of 
 permanence. ' ' 
 
 Towards the close of the drouthy sum- 
 mer we see the oak with the "fading 
 leaf" and a little later when the strong 
 winds bring the first driving rains of the 
 autumn the leaves are falling. Soon the 
 oak has cast its leaves and is bare. We 
 note that the winter is unusually severe ; 
 for the teil tree (terebinth), usually an 
 evergreen, also has cast its leaves. But 
 the promise of the spring is in the winter 
 buds, strung along their twigs. "The 
 33
 
 substance is in them," says the prophet. 
 He is quick to note the life and strength 
 and beauty of the bare trees during the 
 winter season and he uses it as one more 
 illustration of the comfort and hope for 
 the righteous "tenth," the remnant of 
 Judah which finally is to return and be 
 blessed. No one but an observer and a 
 lover of the life out-of-doors could have 
 so noted and used this winter phase in 
 the life of the two trees. 
 
 Isaiah shows us the sloping sides of 
 Lebanon with its vineyards and olive 
 trees, its fir trees and its splendid old 
 cedars. He makes us feel the national 
 shame and the sacrilegious horror of it 
 all as the chariots of Sennacherib climb 
 spirally up the winding roads to the 
 height of the mountain, up to the place 
 where the very finest trees grow in order 
 that he may boast of having cut them. 
 The prophet seems to feel the loss as 
 keenly as John Muir would if some tri- 
 umphing Japanese general should cut 
 the Big Trees on the slope of the Sierras. 
 It is one of the first things he takes up 
 34
 
 in his famous message to Hezekiah, 
 prophesying the impending doom of the 
 army of Sennacherib. The invader had 
 boasted by his servants that he had gone 
 into the extremest height of Lebanon, the 
 forest of his park, and had there, with in- 
 solent boasting, cut down "the height of 
 his cedars and the beauty of his cypress- 
 es. ' ' Dean Stanley has shown us that this 
 was the very sanctuary of Lebanon, the 
 park or garden of the sacred cedars, a 
 "garden of God," located in a dip be- 
 tw^een the terraces of ancient glaciers 
 and the snow-clad hills behind. From 
 this sacred grove Sennacherib cut hun- 
 dreds of patriarchal cedars, sending one 
 of them home to Nineveh as a beam for 
 his palace whereon he might inscribe the 
 boastful record of what he had done. 
 Other trees were used for bridges. Some 
 were burned. They were left so few that 
 a child could count them. About a dozen 
 patriarchal trees are now standing in 
 that sacred grove. Some apparently be- 
 lieve that these are the identical trees 
 which were left by Sennacherib; but 
 35
 
 probably they are not so old as that. 
 These patriarchs now are veiled by the 
 feathery branches of the younger trees 
 which have sprung up during the cen- 
 turies since the ruthless slaughter of the 
 trees by order of Sennacherib. 
 
 Isaiah regards Sennacherib's wanton 
 destruction of the sacred cedars as a di- 
 rect insult to God himself. He had pre- 
 viously likened Sennacherib to a great 
 despoiler of birds' nests — the great 
 bird-nester of the world, driving the 
 daughters of Moab from their homes to 
 the Fords of Arnon, like young birds 
 scared from their nests but unable to fly 
 and shift for themselves. He now likens 
 him to a bull who is to have a ring put 
 through his nose and to be jerked around 
 and led back the same way that he came. 
 
 Everyone who has roamed the woods 
 and noted the young saplings growing up 
 around the place where a big ash or a 
 linden had been cut down will appre- 
 ciate the force and beauty of the figure 
 which is in the first verse of the eleventh 
 chapter of Isaiah. All these figures of 
 36
 
 speech are so many tell-tale marks as to 
 where Isaiah must have spent much of 
 his time, and how he regarded the trees 
 of the forests and the roadsides. 
 
 So, too, the remembrance of having 
 seen a whole forest shaken by the wind, 
 when the smaller trees were whipped 
 hither and thither and even the patri- 
 archs of the forest were swaying in the 
 gale, springs instantly to the prophet's 
 mind when Ahaz and his people are pan- 
 ic-stricken at the coming of Rezin and 
 Pekah, the "two tails of a smoking fire- 
 brand." The king's heart, we are told, 
 and the hearts of his people were moved, 
 ' ' as the trees of the wood are moved with 
 the wind." 
 
 Being a lover of the out-of-doors Isaiah 
 has much to say about the wind. You 
 may feel its freshness and its force in his 
 words, see it playing through many of 
 the most beautiful of his passages. Some- 
 times it is a light, sweet wind, merely 
 bowing the heads of the bulrushes. Or 
 it is a rough, east wind, sweeping down 
 37
 
 from the mountains, sometimes a terriblQ 
 blast that thunders and drives against 
 the wall. Such a blast sends the water 
 of the shallow river driving before it " in 
 seven streams," and the dry land ap- 
 pears. In such a wind everyone seeks 
 shelter. In a country where "the whirl- 
 winds sweep up from the south" a 
 shelter in the time of a great storm is 
 precious; hence the figure of The Man 
 who should be a shelter from the wind. 
 
 If Walt Whitman had written a cate- 
 gorical nature poem, summarizing what 
 he saw in Isaiah, might it not have run 
 something like this? 
 
 What do you see in the Nature-lore of 
 Isaiah, Walt Whitman? 
 
 Take Isaiah's hand, follow him up and 
 down the land, what does he shov) you? 
 
 I see a great round wonder rolling 
 through space. 
 
 I see the moon and the stars, the flying 
 cloud, the light and the shadow, the white 
 mists that lie thick in the valleys and are 
 38
 
 touched with ineffable splendor by the 
 rising sun. 
 
 I see mountain-peaks, the hoary head 
 of Hermon, the promontory of Carmel, 
 the twin ridges of Lib anus and anti-Lib - 
 anus, Bashan and the beautiful oaks. 
 
 I see the storm and the lightning, the 
 earth-quake, the mountain melted by vol- 
 canic fire and its waters boiling and 
 steaming. 
 
 I see the springs gushing from the 
 rocks, bubbling up in big fountains and 
 flowing away to make rivers. 
 
 1 see the stones of fair colors, the ag- 
 ates, the carbuncles, and the sapphires. 
 
 I see the oak, and the fir-trees and the 
 cedars being planted where the syca- 
 mores were cut down. 
 
 I see the acacia and the myrtle blos- 
 soming in the desert, and near by the 
 fir tree and the pine with their dark 
 green needles. 
 
 The terebinth tree and the thorn tree, 
 the cypress and the willows by the 
 waters. 
 
 I see the box tree giving its wood and 
 
 39
 
 the oleaster yielding its oil; the olive tree 
 and the fig tree laden with their fruit. 
 
 I see the reeds and the flags, the sweet 
 cane, the rushes and the grass and the 
 green and ripened corn maki^ig a check- 
 ered landscape beautifid to behold. 
 
 I see the superior fruits and the in- 
 ferior ones, the red grapes ready for the 
 press, the tiny green grapes just grow- 
 ing from the floivers, the small wild 
 grapes, the untimely figs and the hasty 
 fruit before the shimmer. 
 
 I behold the animals of the olden time. 
 I look over into the clear-sunn\l Med- 
 iterranean and see the leviathan. 
 
 I behold the unicorn and the satyr cry- 
 ing to his fellow. 
 
 I behold the camels and the dromeda- 
 ries going down into Egypt laden with 
 presents, the horses with them, and the 
 asses. 
 
 hi the wilderness I behold the lion, 
 the wolf, the leopard, and the galloping 
 wild asses. 
 
 I see the serpents in the thickets, and 
 40
 
 on the rochs, the viper, the adder, the 
 cockatrice and the asp. 
 
 I see the hart at the stream, the chased 
 roe swiftly galloping. 
 
 I see the fish ponds and the sluices 
 and the fish that are perishing in them as 
 they dry up. 
 
 I see the hats flying in the twilight at 
 evening and the mole excavating his 
 cave-dtvelling in the early hours of the 
 morning. 
 
 I see the swarms of flies and the hee- 
 master hissing to his hees. 
 
 I see the yellow butter, and the thick 
 honey. 
 
 I see the worm and the caterpillar, the 
 spider, the locust and the grasshoppers, 
 feeding on the green leaves, the moth 
 and her larvce subsisting on the garment. 
 
 I see the migrating bird, the ravenous 
 bird from Egypt; the raven and the 
 great owl, the screech owl and the vul- 
 tures, the crane and the huge cormorant 
 and the bittern by the pools. 
 
 I see the smaller birds also, the dot*e 
 with her mournful notes, the twittering 
 41
 
 sivallow, the flying doves at the windows. 
 
 Toward them all, small and great ^ and 
 to the great prophet who drew them and 
 loved them and gave me great lessons 
 from them, 
 
 To them and to him I raise high the 
 perpendicular hand, I salute them. 
 
 For he, too, ivas a full-grown poet who 
 took Nature and the soid of man each 
 hy the hand and showed each to the 
 other that he might unite them and hlend 
 them. 
 
 They tell us that Tennyson used to 
 prepare his similes with great care, writ- 
 ing them down in a book and selecting 
 them as needed during his creative writ- 
 ing. It is probably only a bit of ex- 
 aggerated literary gossip, containing 
 the merest grain of truth, though it may 
 explain such elaborate similes 'as that 
 which describes the unhorsing of the 
 bulky bandit in the idyll of Geraint and 
 Enid. But the most of Tennyson's na- 
 ture similes show of themselves that they 
 sprang spontaneously from the mind of 
 42
 
 a keen observer, a real nature lover. In 
 this respect they are not unlike the sim- 
 ilies and the metaphors of Isaiah. It is in 
 some of these figures of the old prophet 
 that we find the best evidence of his keen 
 observation of the out-of-doors and his 
 delight in all its phases. Many of them 
 are worth careful thought: 
 
 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf 
 fadeth and as a garden that hath no 
 water. 
 
 And the daughter of Zion is left as 
 a booth in a vineyard, as a watchman's 
 hut in a garden of cucumbers. 
 
 They shall spring up as among the 
 grass, as willows by the water courses. 
 
 As the fire devoureth the stubble 
 and the flame consumeth the chaff. 
 
 Their roaring shall be like a lion. 
 
 As a teil tree and as an oak, whose 
 substance is in them when they cast 
 their leaves, so the holy seed shall be 
 the substance thereof. 
 
 And his heart was moved, and the 
 hearts of his people, as the trees of the 
 wood are moved with the wind. 
 
 And the earth shall be as a chased roe. 
 
 43
 
 Strong cities shall be as a forsaken 
 bough and as an uppermost branch. 
 
 The king of Assyria likened at first 
 to a swollen river: then to a black 
 vulture, spreading his huge wings over 
 the land. 
 
 The people that walked in darkness 
 have seen a great light. 
 
 Wickedness burneth as a forest fire. 
 
 The Lord shall lop the bough with 
 terror. 
 
 And there shall come forth a rod 
 out of the stem of Jesse and a branch 
 shall grow out of his roots. 
 
 As a wandering bird (young bird) 
 out of the nest, so shall the daughters 
 of Moab be at the Fords of Arnon. 
 
 For thou hast been a shadow from 
 the heat, a refuge from the storm. 
 
 For thy dew is as the dew of herbs. 
 
 Whose glorious beauty is a fading 
 flower. 
 
 Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of 
 hosts with thunder and with earth- 
 quake and with great noise; with 
 storm and tempest and the flame of a 
 devouring fire. 
 
 His breath, even as an overflowing 
 44
 
 stream, shall reach to the midst of the 
 neck. 
 
 As birds flying, so will the Lord of 
 Hosts defend Jerusalem. 
 
 And a man shall be as an hiding 
 place from the wind, as a covert from 
 the tempest; as rivers of water in a 
 dry place, as a shadow of a great rock 
 in a weary land. 
 
 Your spoil shall be gathered like the 
 gathering of the caterpillar; as the 
 running to and fro of locusts shall he 
 run upon them. 
 
 Lo, thou trustest in the staff of a 
 broken reed. 
 
 They were as the grass of the field, 
 as the grass on the housetops. 
 
 My life is removed from me as a 
 shepherd's tent. 
 
 Like a crane or a swallow, so did I 
 chatter, I did mourn as a dove. 
 
 All flesh is grass and the goodliness 
 thereof as the flower of the field. 
 
 He shall feed his flock like a shep- 
 herd. 
 
 The inhabitants of the earth are as 
 grasshoppers. 
 
 They that wait upon the Lord shall 
 
 45
 
 renew their strength ; they shall mount 
 up with wings like eagles. 
 
 I have blotted out as a thick cloud, 
 thy transgressions. 
 
 Then had thy peace been as a river, 
 thy righteousness as the waves of the 
 sea. 
 
 The moth shall eat them up. 
 
 He shall grow up before him as a 
 tender plant. 
 
 All we, like sheep, have gone astray. 
 
 For, as the rain cometh down and 
 the snow from heaven, and returneth 
 not thither but watereth the earth and 
 maketh it bring forth fruit and bud, 
 that it may give seed to the sower and 
 bread to the eater; so shall my word 
 be that goeth forth out of my mouth. 
 
 The wicked are like the troubled sea 
 when it cannot rest. 
 
 Is it to bow down the head as a bul- 
 rush? 
 
 Then shall thy light break forth as 
 the morning. 
 
 The Lord shall satisfy thy soul in 
 drought and thou shalt be like a water- 
 ed garden. 
 
 We roar all like bears and mourn 
 sore like doves. 
 
 46
 
 Who are these that fly as a cloud 
 and like doves to the windows ? 
 
 Thy sun shall no more go down, 
 neither shall thy moon withdraw it- 
 self. 
 
 For, as the earth bringeth forth her 
 bud and the garden causeth the things 
 that are sown in it to spring forth, so 
 the Lord God will cause righteousness 
 and peace to spring forth before na- 
 tions. 
 
 That led him through the deep as an 
 horse through a wilderness. 
 
 As the days of a tree are the days 
 of my people. 
 
 I will extend peace to her like a river 
 and the glory of the gentiles like a 
 flowing stream. 
 
 Many of these beautiful figures are 
 household words. They have been se- 
 lected for anthems and oratorios and for 
 the texts of some of the world's greatest 
 sermons. They give joy to the reader 
 who loves his bible and also to him who 
 loves the out-of-doors. The beauty and 
 depth of meaning in them can scarcely 
 be comprehended save by one who knows 
 47
 
 and loves the out-of-doors, as Isaiah 
 must have done. 
 
 Did you ever pause to look across an 
 open landscape and note the little water- 
 courses draining the fields and the pas- 
 tures, with willows growing closely to- 
 gether on either shore of the streams? 
 Or did you ever halt your boat some 
 summer evening by the grassy shore of 
 some willowed island which was once a 
 sandbank in the middle of the river? 
 It has been reclaimed by the willows and 
 the foliage is so dense that the redwings 
 and crow blackbirds are stringing to- 
 wards it from up and down the river and 
 settling down beneath the green blanket 
 for their night's sleep. Then you will 
 understand the fitness of Isaiah 's figures : 
 * * Thy seed shall be as the sand and thine 
 off-spring shall spring up among the 
 grass, as willows by the water-courses." 
 
 Take your Isaiah some Sunday morn- 
 ing in August to your favorite seat at the 
 base of the old oak on the breezy hillside 
 where you have a view of three-fourths 
 the circle of the horizon. From the 
 48
 
 glossy green leaves at the ends of the 
 twigs, all glorified by sunlight and shad- 
 ow and swaying gently in the summer 
 breeze, your gaze goes to the big back- 
 ground of blue sky, an ocean of blue sky 
 with here and there an island of soft 
 white cloud. You gaze into the azure 
 depths, past the floating ''isles of the 
 blest," past the finest fibres of cirrus 
 clouds, onward and upward into the vio- 
 let blue heights and depths. Somewhere 
 up there is Sirius, the dog star, blazing 
 with fervent heat. Beyond Sirius are 
 other worlds, myriads of them moving in 
 accordance with a mystery divine, and 
 beyond them all, perhaps, still stretches 
 the eternal sea of space, for aught you 
 know unvexed by atmospheres, unlit by 
 suns and stars; it stretches on and on, 
 in a cold and silent eternity until you 
 can no longer touch it with your tensest 
 thought. Then your mind comes back 
 through the worlds of light and loveli- 
 ness, the motions of the planets and the 
 mystery of moving leaves and you open 
 Chapter xl and read: "It is He that 
 49
 
 sitteth upon the circle of the earth and 
 the inhabitants thereof are as grasshop- 
 pers: that stretcheth out the heavens as 
 a curtain and spreadeth them out as a 
 tent to dwell in. ' ' 
 
 Never mind if the higher critics tell 
 us that Isaiah did not write Chapter XL. 
 The higher critics have also told us that 
 Shakespeare didn't write the song in 
 Cjmibeline; but we shall continue to 
 think of the poet 's words at the grave of 
 a good man: ** Nothing ill come near 
 thee. Quiet consummation have, and re- 
 nowned be thy grave," and to think that 
 Shakespeare wrote them. If Shake- 
 speare didn't write that there must have 
 been two Shakespeares. At least we shall 
 think so until the higher critics prove 
 that Shakespeare really didn't write any- 
 thing worth while, but that Bacon wrote 
 it all. And if Isaiah didn't write the 
 chapters which the higher critics are 
 now trying to take from him, then there 
 must have been two Isaiahs, both of 
 them gathering up the beauty of the out- 
 of-doors as it existed in the Judea of 
 50
 
 their day and treasuring it up for us in 
 simile, metaphor and prophecy, making 
 all the generations to come their ever- 
 lasting debtors. 
 
 There remains to be considered the 
 grandest and the most beautiful of all 
 Isaiah 's nature passages ; those which set 
 forth the majesty and the omnipotence 
 of God and those which dwell upon His 
 mercy and goodness. The former, for 
 the most part, are drawn from Nature's 
 greatest and grandest spectacles: the 
 storm and the tempest, the forest con- 
 sumed in the circling flames, the banner 
 raised aloft on the mountain-tops for all 
 the world to behold, the bee-master hiss- 
 ing unto the uttermost ends of the earth, 
 the wonderful series of sublime meta- 
 phors in XXX, 27-33, the last three 
 verses of Chapter II and the first three 
 of Lxiv. It would be easy to multiply 
 examples. In every sublime spectacle of 
 nature Isaiah beholds the majesty and 
 the power of God. 
 
 And the loving-kindness, the goodness 
 51
 
 and the tenderness of God are shown in 
 a series of pastoral pictures, so vivid and 
 so full of serenity and peace that we de- 
 light to read them over and over again. 
 For examples, take the second and the 
 sixth verse of Chapter iv, a large part of 
 Chapter xi; xxx, 23-26; xxii, 15-20; 
 XXXIII, 21; xxxv, 6-10; nearly all of 
 
 XL; XLI, 17-20; XLIII, 20; XLIV, 3, 4; 
 
 xLix, 10 ; LI, 3 ; Lii, 7 ; nearly all of lv ; 
 Lx, 19-21 ; Lxv, 9, 10, 21-25 ; Lvi, 12. 
 
 Isaiah was a monotheist in an age and 
 a world of polytheists. To his clear vis- 
 ion the philosophy of the natural world 
 was plain. To him every aspect of the 
 day and the night, each spectacle of storm, 
 each loveliness of sunshine, was a mani- 
 festation of Divine Majesty, forbearance, 
 forgiveness, and love. He had learned the 
 highest lessons nature has to teach. He 
 might have said with Linnaeus, watch- 
 ing the unfolding of a flower, "I saw 
 God in His glory passing near me and 
 bowed my head in worship." 
 
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