The Gospel of Nature

John Burroughs

Applewood Books

ISBN 155709-131-5

I do not know that the bird has taught me any valuable lesson. Indeed, I do not go to nature to be taught. I go for enjoyment and companionship. I go to bathe in her as in a sea; I go to give my eyes and ears and other senses a free, clean field and to tone up my spirits by her “primal sanities.”

            So begins chapter 3 of The Gospel of Nature a long essay originally included in a book of essays by American naturalist John Burroughs. The publishers at Applewood Books thoughtfully republished this essay in a stand alone 44 page booklet which, according to the introduction, describes …man’s relationship to nature and nature’s relationship to religion.

At age 75 Burroughs was still actively farming and writing. He credited his vigor to a close relationship with nature, a theme woven throughout the essay. He begins by extolling the health benefits of nature for the senses and the body.

He claims inspiration for the essay came from a parson who asked him to speak on the topic. He replies, in part, with this statement: The forms and creeds of religion change, but the sentiment of religion – the wonder and reverence and love we feel in the presence of the inscrutable universe – persists.

This quotation describes the spiritual view of a naturalist, one in total awe of the universe and its majesty. Unlike Shakespeare, Burroughs sees no “Sermons in Stones,” but lessons from history that teach us an appropriate path.

He concludes Part I with a description of a sap bucket left beside a maple tree through winter and spring. Cut off from the rest of nature, the bucket has filled with sap and rainwater and the bodies of drowned animals. He kicked over the fetid mixture with the assurance that the soil would absorb every part and make it pure and sweet.

The story is no less than a metaphor for his view of man. Cut off from nature we decay. Reunited with nature we are made whole.

Part II is as close to a “how to,” a guide for aspiring naturalists as Burroughs gets in this essay. He states that he has not “studied nature so much as visited with her.” He does not aspire to a scientific field study, but enjoyment, though he admits that knowledge will enhance that enjoyment. His delightful story of the ichneumon wasp is but one example of how his knowledge structures his enjoyment.

Burroughs’ gospel is the simple mysticism of the naturalist. It is a belief in the wisdom of nature with little thought to the supernatural. It is a belief that all things happen, not according to some grand plan, but according to what works best.