212 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



glimmer where the corn was sown, and the little buds grow coil 

 within coil, and hurst forth in their emerald beauty to brave the 

 biting breeze ; and in the quiet copse the snowdrop and the primrose 

 bloom, and the daisies in the meadows have new stars of snow ; and 

 when the throstle first whistles in the storm, the young Spring wakes 

 from her winter sleep, and calls forth her leafy children of beauty. 

 Forthwith new troops of things in numberless forms spring into the 

 embrace of life, and the old work goes on again as it has since the 

 morning of creation, when the round world was launched into the 

 great deep, peopled with its tribes of plants and creatures obedient to 

 the changes ordained by Him who performed the work and " saw 

 that it was good." 



So is the year completed, so is beauty renewed, so is life re-born, 

 and man, the beholder of many winters and the watcher of many 

 springs, gathers a lesson from the changes of the time which, in 

 some sense, foreshadows his own destiny. 



How inaudibly glide the seasons one upon the other ! The seed 

 that falls upon the ground, the rounded dew-drops, the gushing 

 flower and the withered leaf " all have the silent mission appointed 

 them, of turning the mighty wheel on which the seasons roll ; " and 

 so, while one season is waning and passing away, the work of the 

 next is in silent progress, and thus there is no pause, no rest, no jar, 

 but the fulfilment of one mighty cycle of change, from year to year, 

 from year to year, again. Thus all the changes of the earth pass 

 round, each imprinting its semblance on the brow of man, and writ- 

 ing its lessons on his heart; that like the green earth beneath his feet, 

 he may, through cold and heat, through storm and sun, be ever blos- 

 soming with good works, and yielding refreshing fruit from the inex- 

 haustible soil of a regenerated heart. 



