My First Summer in Sierra by John Muir

From Muir's book, My First Summer in Sierra, I really enjoyed the excerpt he wrote on September 7 when he was describing the Cathedral and gave mention of religion.

"No feature, however, of all the noble landscape as seen from here seems more wonderful than the Cathedral itself, a temple displaying Nature's best masonry and sermons in stones. How often I have gazed at it from the tops of hills and ridges, and through openings int he forests on my many short excursions, devoutly wondering, admiring, longing! This I may say is the first time I have been at church in California, led here at last, every door graciously opened for the poor lonely worshiper. In our best time everything turns into religion, all the world seems a church and the mountains altars. And lo, here at last in front of the Cathedral is blessed cassiope, ringing her thousands of sweet-toned bells, the sweetest church music I ever enjoyed. Listening, admiring, until late in the afternoon..."
- pg. 82/83

Through Muir's book we can strongly see this relationship between nature and religion. After doing some research on him I was able to find out that Muir's constant mentioning of religion can be attributed to his father. Being raised under his father's strict brand of Christian discipleships, it is not surprising that religion plays an important role in Muir's life which is reflected in his writings. Muir mentions that at the best of times everything is converted into religion. I had never thought of Nature as being religious, but I can now understands what Muir is trying to convey to its readers. Like religion, Nature at its most wilderness, is representative of the world that is farthest away from sin and destruction. In other words nature can be representative of heaven. Nature offers the human beings the peacefulness that is never reached in our hectic lifestyles we are so used to. The sounds produced by Nature (Yes- because Nature is a natural composer)represents the church bells indicating us that is time to ask for forgiveness for our sins and receive the father's blessing. Like God who is always forgiving, Nature is also forgiving. It is not a secret that we take advantage of our natural resources for personal benefits such as monetary gains and personal pleasures. We, as humans, tend to care about what is beneficial for ourselves and don't stop to think of the future or the consequences of our actions. Therefore we exploit nature with the hope that Nature, as always forgiving, will continue producing vegetation and pleasures for us. It is important to note that Muir found many similarities between Nature and religion. For Muir Nature is representative of the Church that thousands of people attend every Sunday to hear the sermon but retain none of its messages.