No days were appointed for fasting and prayer
to bring rain; there was no attribution of the calamity to the
wrath of God or the malice of Satan; but much was said regarding
the folly of our people in allowing the upper regions of their
vast rivers to be denuded of forests, thus subjecting the States
below to alternations of drought and deluge. Partly as a result
of this, a beginning has been made of teaching forest culture in
many schools, tree-planting societies have been formed, and
"Arbor Day" is recognised in several of the States. A true and
noble theology can hardly fail to recognise, in the love of
Nature and care for our fellow-men thus promoted, something far
better, both from a religious and a moral point of view, than
any efforts to win the Divine favour by flattery, or to avert
Satanic malice by fetichism.
CHAPTER XII.
FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
I.
IN all the earliest developments of human thought we find a
strong tendency to ascribe mysterious powers over Nature to men
and women especially gifted or skilled.
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