Basic HTML Version
Chapter 19—In Contact With Nature
The Creator chose for our first parents the surroundings best
adapted for their health and happiness. He did not place them in a
palace or surround them with the artificial adornments and luxuries
that so many today are struggling to obtain. He placed them in close
touch with nature and in close communion with the holy ones of
heaven.
In the garden that God prepared as a home for His children,
graceful shrubs and delicate flowers greeted the eye at every turn.
There were trees of every variety, many of them laden with fragrant
and delicious fruit. On their branches the birds caroled their songs
of praise. Under their shadow the creatures of the earth sported
together without a fear.
Adam and Eve, in their untainted purity, delighted in the sights
and sounds of Eden. God appointed them their work in the garden,
“to dress it and to keep it.”
Genesis 2:15
. Each day’s labor brought
them health and gladness, and the happy pair greeted with joy the
visits of their Creator, as in the cool of the day He walked and talked
with them. Daily God taught them His lessons.
The plan of life which God appointed for our first parents has
lessons for us. Although sin has cast its shadow over the earth, God
[262]
desires His children to find delight in the works of His hands. The
more closely His plan of life is followed, the more wonderfully
will He work to restore suffering humanity. The sick need to be
brought into close touch with nature. An outdoor life amid natural
surroundings would work wonders for many a helpless and almost
hopeless invalid.
The noise and excitement and confusion of the cities, their con-
strained and artificial life, are most wearisome and exhausting to the
sick. The air, laden with smoke and dust, with poisonous gases, and
with germs of disease, is a peril to life. The sick, for the most part
shut within four walls, come almost to feel as if they were prisoners
in their rooms. They look out on houses and pavements and hurrying
182