Page 8 - Good News April 2012 paper

the world can be seen by others… God uses
with a great desire to show people His creation to declare His glory to us.
something of this wonderful loveliness, an Bentley believed it is not only “the sheer
ambition to become, in some measure, its scope of creation that fills us with praise for
preserver. the Creator” when examining snowflakes,
In his study of snowflakes, he learned that but the wonders of God's handiwork are to be
almost all snow crystals have six similar found in the tiniest details of all He has made.
branches, and a few very rare ones have One powerful example of this beauty is the
three. He at first expected that all snowflakes intricate design of a snow crystal. Anyone
would be the same, but was surprised to who has seen snowflakes under a micro-
learn that all of those he examined were scope cannot help but be amazed by how
different. Bentley concluded that, to the best beautifully complex they are (see pictures on
of his knowledge, no snowflake “was an this page). Bentley spent nearly fifty years of
exact duplicate of any other snowflake!,” his life devoted to the study and photography
adding, “with profound humility, we acknow- of these fragile jewels. Fascinated both
ledge that the Great Designer is incom- scientifically and artistically by snow crys-
parable and unapproachable in the infinite tals, he marvelled at what he called the
prodigality and beauty of His works.” wondrous beauty of the minute in nature. As
At age 15 he began drawing snowflakes he observes from the 5 000 photographs of
while looking at them through his micro- snow crystals he collected, “Under the
scope - no easy task, because most of them microscope I found that snowflakes were
melted before he could complete a drawing. miracles of beauty.”
At age 16 he learned about a camera that Bentley learned that the reason no two
could be used with a microscope. His snowflakes are exactly alike is because of
parents saved the money - and when Willie their formation process. As they descend
was 17 they bought him the camera. It took from the clouds, they ride air currents up and
him over a year of failures before he finally down for an hour or more through regions of
achieved his goal - a photograph of a differing temperatures and humidity that
snowflake, the first one ever taken (in 1882)! leave their marks on snowflakes' growth and
He carefully studied snowflakes, learning shape.
that cold, wind, and moisture variations Blanchard wrote that Bentley was puzzled by
could produce very differently shaped the fact that the crystal design variations beauty of nature.”
snowflakes. For example, very cold weather were endless. He said that the explanation Bentley also sold his photographs
produced three-sided snowflakes. “can only be referred to the will and pleasure to universities and published them
One interviewer wrote concerning her trip to of the Great First Cause, whose works, even in leading science magazines,
Bentley's home in Jericho that her visit gave the most minute and evanescent, and in including Nature and The National
her a reason for feeling humble. “Out in that regions the most removed from human Geographic Magazine. At age 66
remote farmhouse, I sat until far into the observation, are altogether admirable.” Bentley published a large, coffee
night listening to an extraordinary story, the Bentley became the world's leading authority table-size book of his photographs
story of how the Great Designer found an on snowflakes, and was even selected to titled Snow Crystals with McGraw-
interpreter in an insignificant country boy.” write the article in the Encyclopedia Britan- Hill, which in 1962 was reprinted by
Blanchard wrote that Bentley “saw God in nica on snow. University of Wisconsin Dover and is still available today.
the workings of the universe and in professor W.B. Snow bought Bentley's Less than two weeks after his book
particular in the splendour and grandeur of photographs for years. After Professor Snow was published, he walked six miles
the snow crystals… he was familiar with the had received the 1916 - 17 picture set from home in a snowstorm, caught
Bible, for in two or three of his articles on Bentley, he wrote to him as follows: “They are pneumonia, and died two weeks
snow crystals he quoted Scripture.” beautiful and give me the most exquisite later. As a “man of science and man
His work has inspired many a sermon: in pleasure, as they will do over and over again, of God,” Willie Bentley made
1925 Bentley said, “Under the microscope… for I shall see them repeatedly during the important contributions to several
every crystal was a masterpiece of design coming year. You are doing a great work in fields of science, including meteo-
and no one design was ever repeated...” enabling students and scientists, and people rology, physics, and chemistry.
The Biblical sermon becomes a microscope in many walks of life, to see and to appreciate http://www.icr.org/article/snow
by which the intricacies of God's design in the infinity and prodigality as well as the flake-bentley-science-man-god/