# “A little dancing sister” by G.K. Chesterton

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2026/09/27/a-little-dancing-sister-by-g-k-chesterton/
- Published: 2026-09-27T06:00:00-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really
in this proposition: _that Nature is our mother_. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature
as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother.

The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: _Nature 
is our sister._ We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but
she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate.

This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of 
lightness that is almost frivolity.

Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn
mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson.

But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis,
Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed
at as well as loved.”

–G.K. Chesterton, **[_Orthodoxy_](https://link.amazon/B08WR6FhU) **([_**The Christian Heritage Series**_](https://link.amazon/B08WR6FhU);
Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1908/2020), 119-120.

[⌊Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton⌉⌊Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton⌉[

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