RAINBOWS: ARE THEY "REAL" OR "IMAGINARY"?
Gen. ix. 12, 17.
Nature has been described by Mr. Hinton as "an Infinite Mystery, with nothing in it." And perhaps the best illustration, the most perfect specimen of nature in that aspect, is the rainbow. That may be one reason why it was chosen as the earliest, and as it were typical, instance of God speaking to man by means of natural images. It stands as a constant protest, on the one hand, against that tendency to invest with a permanent and inherent sacredness the objects through which God reveals Himself, which lies at the root of most forms of idolatry; and, on the other hand, against the contempt which we are too prone to feel for objects of adoration now outgrown. For the rainbow, though not more essentially phenomenal than other parts of nature, is far more evidently so. People might suppose there was some mystical sacredness inherent in the material substance of a particular animal, or rock, or plant, and wanting in others; they hardly could make such a mistake about the drops which form the material of a rainbow; for as soon as it became to them anything but a mere manifestation of the divine Will, as soon as they found out anything whatever about the process by which it came into being, they must
