Periwinkle
So our friend brought us some periwinkle. I loved the idea that this vine would grow thick all over and cover the ground so you wouldn’t have so many weeds to tend with. It has been a few years since then and the ground is covered.
The pretty little blue flowers just add a spark here and there to the dark green and the ferns have grown bigger now and are giving it some more shade but it keeps spreading, showing us that each plant has its purpose.
"Now look at Adam, perfectly sound and healthy, superior to every beast and every germ; nothing could hurt him, nothing could do him harm; superior to the elements themselves. We see some little evidences of this superiority still left in the world. For instance, there is the carrier pigeon, which has the homing instinct to such a wonderful degree. Take one of these pigeons five hundred miles away from home, and let it loose, and it goes straight to its home. It has an instinct that leads it home. That same thing must have been true of man once, as well as of the pigeon to-day. There are other animals that can not be very easily lost. It is difficult to lose a dog or a cat. Even when taken far away from home, they can find their way back.
Conscience is perhaps all that remains of that instinct in man. But man has other instincts to guide him. I presume 20,000 people have asked me what to eat. Animals do not have to be told what to eat. I never had a horse or a cow come to me to know what to eat. But man does not know what to eat. He has lost his "horse sense" about his diet. He has lost his pigeon sense; and he has lost nearly all his senses. He is supposed to be guided by reason; but instinct is a better guide than reason, my friends. Why?--Because instinct is God speaking. Instinct is the voice within us, saying, "This is the way; walk ye in it." The Bible tells us of that voice "behind us," the text says; but the voice within us is the real thing,--a voice, not behind us, but within us, above our reason and our intelligence. It is this thing that I want to talk to you about to-night, this life within. So I am going to have thrown upon the screen a few pictures, which will act as texts upon which to hang a few remarks.
First of all, I want to call your attention to the fact that there is a great life all about us, which we do not see or think about. To a man that has not studied nature, the world is dumb. If we have not studied nature, we do not see very much to interest us. The Indian sees a great deal more than the man who has dwelt in the city.
Some time ago in a slum Sabbath-school in Chicago I held up a blue flower, and said to the children, "What color is this flower?" Some said it was red, others thought it was yellow, blue, or green. Those children had not seen many flowers, and did not know much about them. They did not know anything about nature. And some of us are just about as stupid as those children were."
April 1901 N/A, GCB 492