Genesis 1:11-13 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind… We need not seek for rare or out-of-the-way productions to gather lessons — every green thing that springs out of the ground is a preacher to us, if we would but listen to its voice. All the leaves of the forest join in one general murmur to repeat in our ears the prophet's warning, "We all do fade as a leaf." And as we are so prone to thrust this truth out of mind, as comes on every fading fall of the year, God spreads before us on plain and hillside a great parable, in which our own decay and death are pictorially represented in such a vivid and impressive manner, that he who runs may read, and he who reads must reflect and profit. With the leaves join the beauteous flowers, like whispering angels, to impress the same needful admonition upon the heart and mind of man. "As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth." And each flower along his path seems to look up and address him in language of its own, and say —Child of the dust, like me you spring, A bright but evanescent thing; Like me may be cut down today, And cast a worthless weed away.The grass also has its speech. It spreads itself before us like a living allegory, in which we may see our image and our end. It says, "All flesh is grass; in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withered." And when its beauties and benefits, and teachings all can avail man no more, the green grass reverently spreads itself as a robe over his slumbering form, and forsakes not even that upon which all others have turned their back — his grave — remaining there, in each bright blade, a perpetual type of a coming glorious resurrection! (H. W. Morris, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. |
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