cause He always attributed to the direct activity of the Father. ' Your heavenly Father feedeth them. . . . Shall he not much more clothe you . . . ? ' ' Not one of them falleth to the ground without your Father . . .' 'My Fatiier worketh hitherto.' In this sense of the immediacy of the Divine activity we find one of the most character- istic traits of the religious attitude of Jesus towards the natural world. The same consideration throws a suggestive light on the way in which He exercised His ' miraculous ' gifts. To Him there was nothing ' supernatural ' or inexplicable in the wonderful deeds He wrought. They were rather perfectly natural signs of the activity of God in and through Him : ' My Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works ' ( Jn 14'"). Even in the case of an act of healing which was performed without any overt reference to the Divine power, as when He said, ' I Avill, be thou clean' (Lk 5'^), the same attitude of dependence on the Father's favour and power must be presupjjosed (cf. Jn 5'"). To Jesus, there- fore, the wonderful works which He wrought wei'e but the expression of the will of God through Him, and were as natural as the forces that eventuate in the 'blowing clover and the falling rain.' If this were borne in mirkd, perhaps the difficulty of the miraculous would not be what it is to many nowadays. The key would be seen to lie in the region of personality rather than of a 'super- natural' law over-riding a natural law'. Jesus being who and what He was, it was as natural for Him to work ' miracles ' and to exercise an excep- tional control over the ' forces ' of nature, ^as it was for Napoleon to do extraordinary things through his gift of control over men, or for a great scien- tist to initiate fresh changes in the forms and con- ditions of matter. The differentia of the soul of Jesus was an unbroken fellowship with God as His P'ather, which manifested itself in all He did, and, among other Avays, in the power to use natural forces in a unique way in order to fulhl His filial mission.
5. There is another aspect of the attitude of Jesus to nature and natural phenomena which must not be overlooked, and which, however inci- dental it may be to His mission as such, is replete with suggestion and helpfulness. We have pointed out that His scicntifc and iihilosophic interest in nature was merged into the religious interest which always controlled His soul. What of the artistic interest which is so strong in the highest type of mind ? Here again we must speak of the subordination of all to the spiritual outlook and temper. None the less is it clear that Jesus was profoundly sensitive to the beauty of the world. He loved Nature for her own sake, and because she ministered to His love of what was fair and good to look at. And if it is true that the ' function of art is (1) to teach us to see, (2) to teach us what to see, and (3) to teach us to see more than we see,' then the discourses of Jesus reveal the artistic temperament in all His references to the facts of the natural order. See art. Poet.
(1) His faculty of observation was extraordinary. His eye took in the smallest detail of the outward world with loving appreciation. We have refer- ences to the march of the seasons (Mt 24^^, Mk 13^8) ; to the orderly stages of growth (Mk 4"*) ; to the varying response of various kinds of soil (4*'^) ; to the mystery of develoi)ment (vv.^'- ^') ; to the habits and dispositions of animals (Mt 10"", Lk 958 1334 1737^ Jn 103-5. 12^ (.f_ ]vi tV^) • to the customs
of the household (Lk 13^\ cf. the many references to the law of hospitality, and to human intercour.se and social life). He was never at a loss, indeed, in di'awing upon the resources of His observation for the purpose of illustrating His own teaching, but was like a householder, ' bringing forth from his treasure things new and old' (Mt 13'^).
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(2) In the same way He teaches us what to see. A wise selection must be made in storing the mind Avitli facts and impressions, so that the multiplicitj- of Nature may not overwhelm the mind, or cause us to lose our way in the confusion of her wealth. And while, as we have seen, there was nothing too great or too small to arrest His eye or interest His mind, there is one interest which evidentlj- dominated His mind in His watchful observation of natural phenomena. That was the ordinary h uman interest. And this is always true of the highest art. The painter, the poet, the sculptor, are eminently and broadlj' hnnum in their approach to Nature ; what has no reference to human experience and action and passion lies outside the scope of ner ai>peal to them. A glance at our Lord's parables and illustra- tions at once reveals this dominant human interest. He refers only to those aspects of nature that in some more or less definite way intermingle with the daily or occasional experience of human beings. Tliere was a practical as well as artistic purpose in this ; for He was thus able to interest His hearers more readily in the higher truths which He was anxious to impress upon their minds and to com- mend to their sympathies.