--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Chateaubriand, François-René de collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 12 published: 1911-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Chateaubriand, François-René de, "Nature Proclaims a Deity," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 12 (October 1911): 1076.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14012unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera14012unse start_page: 1076 end_page: 1076 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera14012unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Nature Proclaims a Deity 1076 IMPRO VEMENT ERA . sky-rocket spear represented as killing the ten-year-old school-boy's hel- meted man on the war story side of the large slate. When an Egyptian drew anything at all, he drew it well according to their standards. There were no helter-skelter dabblers in art in those days. Drawing was the result of their life; it was not only one with their religion;but it was the historical record of their religion and of the life of their nation, and all the dignity of their earnest purpose and love was put into each slate — and these were made only by the educated ones. The man who made these counterfeits did not study carefully enough the real archeological slates and the art that is in them. In trying to imitate these, he evidently saw them as nothing more than queer stuff made most any old way. Hoping that this suggestion may prove of some value to you, I am Respectfully yours. Miriam Brooks. Nature Proclaims a Deity. There is a God! The herbs of the valley, the cedars of the mountains, bless him; the insect sports in his beam; the bird sings him in the foliage; the thunder proclaims him in the heavens; the ocean declares his immensity; man alone has said " There is no God!" Unite in thought at the same instant the most beautiful objects in Dature. Suppose that you see, at once, all the hours of the day, and all the seasons of the year — a morning of spring and a morning of autumn — a night bespangled with stars, and a night darkened by clouds— meadows enameled with flowers — forests hoary with snow — fields gilded by the tints of autumn — then alone you will have a just conception of the universe! While you are gazing on that sun which is plunging into the vault of the west, another observer admires him emerging from the gilded gates of the east. By what incoiceivable power does that aged star, which is sinking fatigued and burning in the shades of the evening, reappear at the same instant fresh and humid with the rosy dew of the morning? At every hour of the day, the glo- rious orb is at once rising, resplendent as noon-day, and setting in the west; or rather, our senses deceive us, and there is, properly speaking, no east or west, no north or south in the world. — Chat- eaubriand.