The Gospel of Nature

by John Burroughs

In 1912, the great American naturalist John Burroughs was asked by a preacher to talk to his parishioners on the gospel of nature. In his essay, Burroughs reflects on the impact and influence his excursions in nature had on his life. That I am a saner, healthier, more contented man, with truer standards of life, for all my loiterings in the fields and woods, I am fully convinced." This short work is part of Applewood s American Roots series, tactile mementos of American passions by some of America s most famous writers and thinkers."

Genres: Nature, Spirituality

56 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1989

About the author

In 1837, naturalist John Burroughs was born on a farm in the Catskills. After teaching, and clerking in government, Burroughs returned to the Catskills, and devoted his life to writing and gardening. He knew Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Walt Whitman, writing the first biography of Whitman. Most of his 22 books are collected essays on nature and philosophy. In In The Light of Day (1900) he wrote about his views on religion: "If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go." "When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God' . . . " In his journal dated Feb. 18, 1910, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion." He died on his 83rd birthday. The John Burroughs Sanctuary can be found near West Park, N.Y., and his rustic cabin, Slabsides, has been preserved. D. 1921.

According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.

In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.

Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".

Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...

http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/

Reviews

[Teddy Driscoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Burroughs I believe does exactly as he intends to in this lengthened pamphlet of a book. He seeks to relate the tenets of Christianity to that which he has been taught in his naturalistic education. I disagree with him perhaps more on a theological basis than I disagree with the strength of the book itself. He does seriously overlook the connection between man and the rest of the animals, and in his anthropocentrism misses what could be incredibly interesting lessons from the animal kingdom, as he has quite wrongly assumed that there is no morality or sense of write and wrong in them. Recognizing humanity's similarity and part of the natural world would assist him greatly.

[J.D. Steens · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this essay comes from a clergyman’s request of Burroughs to talk “on the gospel of Nature.” Burroughs’ response, which can be nitpicked here and there, is not really about the beauty and joy of nature, though that is there. Rather, it’s about the human place in the cosmos. This is best summed up with the following from Burroughs: “[T]hink of the more harmless obsession of many good people about the second coming of Christ, or about the resurrection of the physical body when the last trumpet shall sound. A little natural knowledge ought to be fatal to all such notions. Natural knowledge shows us how transient and insignificant we are, and how vast and everlasting the world is, which was aeons before we were, and will be other aeons after we are gone, yea, after the whole race of man is gone. Natural knowledge takes the conceit out of us, and is the sure antidote to all our petty anthropomorphic views of the universe….If man has not yet appeared on other planets, he will in time appear, and when he has disappeared from this globe, he will still continue elsewhere….The game will be played over and over again in other worlds, without approaching any nearer the final end than we are now. There’s no final end, as there was no absolute beginning, and can be none with the infinite.” Burroughs wrote this in 1912.

[Ray Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Generally well written and insightful.

[Lacey Kuriger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This essay was written in answer to a request from a church pastor, who asked Mr. Burroughs to write a sermon on the gospel that Nature had to offer.

John Burroughs loves the natural world. It's very obvious when you read this essay and, despite the fact that Burroughs says there are no real biblical lessons to be found in Nature, there's something spiritual about this little book. Several passages left me with goosebumps and I had meditation fodder for weeks.

If you hate the great outdoors, by all means, skip this book over but the rest of you? Read it now.