"Look at the World," is the advice David Grayson gives to those who
follow him in his delightful essays on Great Possessions--possessions
that cannot be measured with a yardstick or entered in the bank book.
This is his cure for all the trials and vexations that come in the
course of a busy life. For how can a man remain unsettled and morose and
distressed when he is gazing at the broad expanse of the sky, studying
the beauty of the trees, or listening to the mellow voices of the birds?
How can the wanderer in field and forest forget that God is love?

Some people think that to drink in the glories of nature they must go to
the mountains, or seek some other far-away spot. Mistake! The place to
enjoy God's world is just where one is, and the time is that very
moment. This was the lesson taught so impressively by Alice Freeman
Palmer, when she described the little dweller in the tenements who
resolved to see something beautiful each day, and who, one day, when
confined to the house, found her something in watching a rain-soaked
sparrow drinking from the gutter on the tin roof. And this was the
thought in the mind of Mr. Grayson when he said:

"I love a sprig of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark,
or a pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy
grass drawn slowly from its sheath, or a twig of the birch that tastes
like wintergreen."

Hamlin Garland, in "A Son of the Middle Border," has told the story of
his boyhood on an Iowa farm. He knew how to enjoy the sights to which so
many are blind:

"I am reliving days when the warm sun, falling on radiant slopes of
grass, lit the meadow phlox and tall tiger lilies to flaming torches of
color. I think of blackberry thickets and odorous grapevines, and
cherry-trees and the delicious nuts which grew in profusion throughout
the forest to the north. The forest, which seemed endless and was of
enchanted solemnity, served as our wilderness. We explored it at every
opportunity. We loved every day for the color it brought, each season
for the wealth of its experiences, and we welcomed the thought of
spending all our years in this beautiful home where the wood and the
prairie of our song did actually meet and mingle.... I studied the
clouds. I gnawed the beautiful red skin from the seed vessels which hung
upon the wild rose bushes, and I counted the prairie chickens as they
began to come together in winter flocks, running through the stubble