AUGUST. 



Lift up your eyes and look on the fields ; for they are white already 

 to harvest. 



JOHN iv. 35. 



THE grand feature of this month is CORN HAR- 

 VEST. It is a time for universal gladness of heart. 

 Nature has completed her most important opera- 

 tions. She has ripened her best fruits, and a thou- 

 sand hands are ready to reap them with joy. It is 

 a gladdening sight to stand upon some eminence 

 and behold the yellow hues of harvest amid the 

 dark relief of hedges and trees, to see the shocks 

 standing thickly in a land of peace ; the partly- 

 reaped fields and the clear, cloudless sky, shed- 

 ding over all its lustre. There is a solemn splen- 

 dour, a mellowness and maturity of beauty, thrown 

 over the landscape. The wheat-crops shine on the 

 hills and slopes, as Wordsworth expresses it, " like 

 golden shields cast down from the sun." For the 

 lovers of solitary rambles, for all who desire to 

 feel the pleasures of a thankful heart, and to parti- 

 cipate in the happiness of the simple and the lowly, 



