“The world is beautiful. I’ve said that to myself a thousand times as I walk through the greening meadows in the spring and listen to the song of the lark. But we Christians must be mindful not to speak of the beauty of nature with such expression, with such rapture, as if indifferent to the obvious groaning and sighing all around, of which our text speaks (Rom. 8:18-23). Just look at the animals with their mute, joyless, pleading eyes; isn’t their sighing evident? The stark mountains and the naked cliffs, which are scattered out under the sky like old bones, weep with the anxious expectation of rebirth.”
-Wilhelm Löhe in The Word Remains (p. 61)
*It is worth noting that Löhe lived from 1808 to 1872, during the time of Romanticism, which was characterized by an emphasis on emotion and a glorification of nature.