The beauty of Nature is a gift of God.  The purpose of this gift is to make us happy and to lift up our thoughts to higher things.  The greatest works of Art and the greatest writings in both prose and poetry have been inspired by this gift of beauty.

All God’s gifts to us carry responsibility; we are bound to use them as He intends us to do, or we go against His goodwill.  His goodwill is that all of us shall enjoy the beauty of Nature, not some of us; therefore we must not only enjoy the gift ourselves but we must protect it from being spoiled for other people.  For instance, if we break down branches of flowering trees or root up flowering plants we are spoiling for other people what we have enjoyed ourselves.  This is selfish.  Again, if we destroy birds’ nests, especially if they are rare kinds, we are preventing other people from enjoying the sight of those birds.  This is selfish.  If we throw rubbish of any kind, broken bottles, crockery, tins, papers, &c., into clear water—either stream, lake or pond—we are destroying the beauty of the water for other people.  This again is selfish.

One of the ways in which many beautiful places are spoiled is by the leaving about of waste paper, bottles, orange peel, banana skins, egg shells, cigarette boxes, &c., &c.  All these things are very ugly in themselves, and the ugliness and untidyness of leaving them about prevents the beauty of the place which is God’s gift for making us happy and lifting up our thoughts to higher things.  For how can we be happy if we are surrounded by signs of thoughtlessness and selfishness and how then can our thoughts be lifted up to higher things?  There are many places of great beauty in this country which people can only visit perhaps once in a year or perhaps even once in a lifetime.  Is it not the height of unkindness to them to spoil in any way their enjoyment of such places?

We are proud of our native land, and if we do anything to destroy its beauty or injure it in any way we are not true patriots, for the true patriot thinks first of his country and then of himself.

Make it a rule never to leave waste paper about—either bring it away or bury it, and all remains of food, such as orange peel, egg shells, &c., &c.  In New York if anyone is seen to throw away a scrap of waste paper in the street he is at once spoken to by the police and made to pick it up.

Never cut your name or initials on anything—turf, wood or stone—or deface anything by writing on it.

Many beautiful places and grounds hitherto left open have been closed because of the bad behaviour in these ways of a few persons.  Take care you are never among these few.

There are many places open to the public such as properties of the National Trust, Mountains, Lakes, Parks and Commons; you as one of the public should help to protect them. Boys and girls can do this, as well as grown-up people.

            Keswick, July, 1916.                                                                          H.D.R.
                                                                                                                   E.R.

(Parents’ Review, XXIX (July 1918), 501-502)

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There are few months more variable in mood and character than December at the lakes.  At times it is a month of storm and wind, and we hear the horns of the Atlantic blowing their thunderous voices among the hills, at other times we have windless calm and our lakes lie like mirrors for Father Christmas or the glad New Year to see their faces in; again, at times, though there is no snow in the valley, for the most part the tops are winter white, whilst again they stand up against the blue-grey sky slopes of lilac melting into brown and russet, or white-grey fell tops of blanched grass falling downward into grey-green. (p. 234)

There is at these times, however, a sound of brooks in the silence and through the grey morning the rooks go forth with clamour and return in the early afternoon to their roosting places with noise, while the solemn evening twilight or the moonlit nights are made glad with the crowing of the owls.  If weather permits, the farmers go afield with their horses and the brown fallows are dappled with those fearless children of the sea, the white winged gulls; the fieldfares chatter amongst the berried hedgerows, and the starlings fill the air with the strange whisper of their wings—except for these sounds December is dumb. (pp. 234-235)

I am wrong, two birds sing.  The wrens that run along the mossy walls more like mice than birds may be heard quavering their Christmas song, and well they may, for they dwell in the land of Wrens, the ‘Rans’ or over-runners of the Viking times and they feel the Norse life in their blood that keeps them warm in fiercest winter time; we have another bird—bird sacred in the Crosthwaite valley to the patron saint, St. Kentigern—the robin redbreast; he is not to be out-done by his little Viking cousin, and he too sings lustily and with good cheer, at morning, noon and eventide. (p. 235)

The charm of the woodland at this time of year lies in the ruddy hue of the fallen leaf and the faded bracken on the ground and the little russet-coated squirrel that sits up alone and regales himself between his slumbers with beech mast and pine-cone seed.  But the beauty of the woods is much enhanced by the noble growth of the holly.  Hollies grow in the lake country, if they escape the woodman’s axe, as if they felt the lake country was peculiarly their own. (p. 235)….

Generally speaking, the feeling for Christmas holiday is as strong as it is wide-spread in expression.  The old Norse feeling for Yule as a time of rejoicing at the Winter solstice and the return of the sun has never died.  Every farmhouse kitchen in the week before Christmas is sweet with the oven’s breath.  “Standin pie”—a sort of glorified pork-pie in appearance, but made of raisins, currants, suet, meat, candied peel, sugar, nut-meg, and spice—and mince pies, currant pasties, spice cakes are seen in various stages of manufacture.  To refuse to partake of these dainties when offered is looked upon almost as a personal insult, an affront to the good name of the house and the hostess.  And to allow a mince pie to remain uneaten after Candlemass, is of the nature of sin.  Nor are the humblest cottages devoid of Christmas decoration.  Every Christmas market testifies not only to the goose-eating possibility of the dweller at the English lakes, but to his demands for a bit of Christmas, that is a holly bough to decorate his home. (pp. 239-240)

(Months at the Lakes, pp. 234-240)

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Little did I think when as a child nearly fifty years ago I watched the clever Halton carpenter, Hanson, at his work building the new wooden bridge across the Hollow Gate hard by, that one day I should be called upon to be the humble means of building for a second time a bridge between Halton and Carlisle, that I should follow a Halton man and go to be Canon of a Cathedral in the North, that never can forget the debt it owes to an earlier Halton man, first as Canon and afterwards as Bishop. (p. 3)

In the year 1292, on St. George’s Day, which was as it were yesterday,—a day we lovers of English literature remember as the birthday and deathday of William Shakespeare, and the deathday of William Wordsworth,—there was elected a Bishop of Carlisle from among the Canons of the Priory there, one John de Halton or Halughton, John of the Hollow Town (as it was called), of whom tradition has it, he was a Lincolnshire man, and of whom it is presumable to believe that he sprang from this parish (p. 3)….

It is many years since by the death of John of the Hollow Town the link between the one-time Canon of Carlisle and this village was broken, but to-day the link is once again made good, and I am called as a Halton man and a Canon of the same Cathedral city, to speak with honour of the name of the Haltons of old time. (p. 4)

The deeply interesting and permanent record of the rectors of your ancient parish which is unveiled and dedicated to-day, and which we owe to the public spirit and indefatigable handicraft of a present day churchwarden, commences with the names of five men who may have been of the Carlisle Bishop’s family (p. 4)….

On the carven roll of honour will henceforth stand not only the rectors’ names for nearly 700 years and the wardens’ names for 325 years, but the clerks’ names for 202 years also. (p. 8) 

The parish clerk is fading from our midst.  All the more need to keep the names of these faithful servants bright in memory upon the walls of the Church they served.  As a boy, more than fifty years ago, I knew one “Francis Haw” by name, who if ever amongst working men as saint was found, was such.  A man of deep religious life and spiritual insight, I see his fine old face as I speak, bent in silent prayer before, as he would say, “he began to take the service,” and I hear still his fervent reverential voice leading the reading of the Psalms and saying the loud amens.  He prayed night and morning for God’s Spirit to be poured upon this parish; he obtained a good report through faith, but received not the promise. (pp. 8-9)

(Sermon Preached in Halton Holgate Church by Canon Rawnsley on the Occasion of the Dedication of a Memorial in Halton Holgate Church to Former Rectors, Churchwardens, and Parish Clerks on April 24th, 1911)

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Not as on Derwentwater, when the dawn
        Comes dancing o’er Helvellyn, comes the light
        To Lago Maggiore: here the night
With jealous, lingering footsteps is withdrawn,
And up the hills, and down the mountain-lawn,
        The blue-eyed morn with silver sandals bright
        Moves toward the sleeping waters.  First to
            sight
The still grey mirror glimmers into fawn;

Next, while the church-bell moans across the mere
    From some far convent, lilac steals from Heaven,
        And when the swallow stirs, a roseate cloud
        Casts down its purple; blackbirds sing out loud,
    Green light and gold from dewy slopes are given,
Then the blue deepens, and the day is here.

(Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy, p. 58)

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