206 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



ferns, brakes, flowers and shrubs, or floating 

 high in that warm sky, and as a pure spirit of 

 the past smiling upon the land of plenty to 

 which it never was unfriendly or unkind. Yes, 

 the winter has melted into spring and now the 

 spring has blossomed into summer. Nature, 

 once so cold and white and still, is now warm, 

 gleaming with many tints and trembling with 

 growth in every marvellous group of its restless 

 molecules. The tide of life was ebbing in 

 January. Now it is nearing the flood. Then 

 the soul of man needed courage and faith to 

 make it believe that the frozen world had un- 

 quenchable life, persistent force, locked up in it. 

 Now the soul needs the intelligence of God to 

 enable it to count the wonders of realization 

 which burning life and exuberant energy have 

 placed above, below, and on every side. 



As I look at this grass and the flowers which 

 shine in its midst, at the myriad leaves upon the 

 trees, at the butterflies, caterpillars, locusts, ants, 

 and bees, and at the birds* solicitous for their 

 eggs or young, should I be sorrowful because 

 in a few days the annual tide of life will turn 

 and the grass begin to ripen, the flowers to fade, 

 the butterflies to die, and the birds to take note 

 of the sky and begin their journey southward ? 

 No. The rhythm of the universe demands just 

 this coming and going, rising and falling, ex- 



