66 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



them with soft music in the sweet sunshine ? — dropping down 

 their rich shadows on the soft turf ? Can you not look back to 

 those old days, and see the young children playing in the 

 grass, and the wild flowers playing like children in the shad- 

 ows ? Those shadows seem deeper, and the green turf seems 

 softer for those old simple words of promise, and I have come 

 at last to feel that every man who plants an elm tree to shelter 

 and adorn the home of his affection, the home of wife and 

 child, plants a tree of peace there. The Indian still reads it 

 from out the wild woodlands : the sweet sunshine and the 

 quiet shadows promise him peace and rest beneath their 

 shade. 



There is still left to us all an inherited memory of that antique 

 Hebrew feeling of the sweetness of repose under one's own vine 

 and fig tree — of that deep and intense feeling of repose which 

 the children of Israel, exiles and aliens in Egypt — the wanderers 

 for forty years in the gray, weary desert, might well feel when, 

 in the green hills and forests of Judea, they could find rest at 

 last for their travel-worn feet, could leave their folded tents, 

 and make themselves homes at last in that land — then so beau- 

 tiful and fair. We inherit that old, deep feeling, for we, too, 

 must in some way be exiles and wanderers before we find repose, 

 and the drooping elm tree at the door, the dewy rose-bush at 

 the window of home, the fragrant honeysuckle at the porch — 

 all are " trees of peace !" 



This rural life does not teach industry solely, nor cultivate 

 the affections alone — it appeals to all our higher faculties, it 

 refines and elevates, it teaches us that there is a beauty in 

 flower and tree, in sunshine and shadow, and in the waving 

 bough, in the golden green light of the woods and meadows, 

 and in the great wild woodlands, which was not bestowed 

 without purpose, nor in vain. 



"We read in that old cherished book, " Bunyan's Pilgrim's 

 Progress," how Christian, as he journeyed, " lifted up his eyes 

 and behold there was a very stately palace before him, the 

 name of which was ' Beautiful,' and it stood by the highway- 

 side." ^ As we too journey on in life's pilgrimage, that stately 

 palace rises before us in its hushed and solemn beauty ; it 

 stands now as of old by the highway-side, and its lofty portals 

 arc thrown open wide, that whoso will, may enter there. 



