Summer Meeting. 2g 



be to wear one's life out amid the dust and grime and dirt of the toihng 

 and crowded city. It is an interesting fact to know that great num- 

 bers of the successful men in the bustling business life of our great 

 cities are those who carried to these busy marts with them something 

 of the freshness and beauty, the abounding life and tireless exhilaration, 

 the sound morality and high moral purposes of the farm. 



We are living in a busy world and in a busy age, in which one needs 

 to conserve all his moral and physical energy. We hurry to our tasks 

 and hurry away from them. We bolt our food, read a book in an even- 

 ing and abbreviate our rest. We want quick transit, steam and 

 electricity, by water, rail and air. The art of ultimate arrival is the 

 practical art of these days. In our feverish hurry we care to see 

 nothing and hear nothing, but only to reach the desired ends and des- 

 tination. In the struggle for fame and fortune we spend weary days 

 and sleepless nights in planning, scheming, executing. There is a 

 constant drain and a tremendous draft upon our physical, mental and 

 moral being, and our store of energy is rapidly consumed. "Where 

 are the old, calm faces we used to see?" asks a great writer. "Now 

 we see only a dull restlessness, a restless dullness." "How rare it is," 

 says another, "to see those faces that have the stillness as of hushed 

 water in them, the 'exquisite eyes of silent blessedness,' the luminous 

 beauty of a great peace. The calm faces have gone because the calm 

 life is gone." Amid such conditions much is to be said for pedestrian- 

 ism and for life in the open fields, where one may catch glimpses of the 

 meadows, of the heavens above, and may hear the lark singing as it 

 cleaves the air. But how few can take time for this. The hum of the 

 market place and the sound of commercial life comes this way, and 

 we are impatient till we are in the midst of it all. 



The world is too much with us, late and soon, 

 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. 

 Little we see In nature that is ours; 

 We have given our lives away, a sordid boon. 



One of the most pleasing pictures presented to us in Scripture is 

 that of Isaac, the son of laughter, going out "to meditate in the fields 

 at eventide." Up and down, over his fields, he walked and thought. 

 The sun was going down, the birds were seeking their nests. He was 

 alone with his own thoughts and God's. A man is at his very best 

 in such an attitude. What an opportunity he who works amid the 

 fruits and flowers and gardens has to meditate upon the higher themes, 

 and muse upon the truths that constantly knock at his door and demand 

 his attention. A friend who is himself a lover of nature writes : "I 

 have known men who would rather watch a green sprig peep above 



