52 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REporT. 
the opportunity that lies directly before us. I bid you then, go 
back into the rural country, fully inspired with the idea that great 
opportunity for service awaits you. Here is a new thing in the 
world, and a new opportunity for usefulness. 
I am convinced that the opportunity for personal development 
is now as great in the open country as in any other direction. 
Every man or woman on the land who makes a real success at 
farming and at living is a marked person. He is not buried in the 
mere multitude. The good new things that need doing are so many 
that I do not see how a man can escape them. 
Above all, old and young, we must never lose faith in the soil. 
It is the source and condition of our existence. It never grows 
stale and it never wears out. The earth is always young. 
The fields were parched with summer’s heat, 
The life and green from swamps had fled, 
The dry grass crunched beneath the feet, 
And August leaves dropped stiff and dead. 
Then light south winds ’cross wood and shore 
Brought cooling clouds and slow sweet rain, 
And hills and crops were new once more 
And grasses.greened on marsh and plain. 
So swift the magic sent its spell 
Thro’ burning corn and pastures dumb, 
’Twas clear the world had rested well 
Against the time when rain should come. 
So virile is this earth we own 
So quick with life its soil is stung, 
A million years have come and flown 
And still it rises green and young. 
