54 UNDER THE TREES. 



some new object from the world of sights and 

 sounds. 



Nature surrounds her child with invisible teach 

 ers, and makes even its play a training for the 

 highest duties. Gradually, imperceptibly, she ex 

 pands the vision and suffers here and there a hint 

 of something deeper and more wonderful to stir 

 and direct the young discoverer. He sees the 

 apple tree let fall its blossoms, and, lo ! the fruit 

 grows day by day to a mellow and enticing ripeness 

 under his eyes. Suddenly he detects a hidden 

 sequence between flower and fruit ! The rose bush 

 is covered with buds, small, green, unsightly ; a 

 night passes, and, behold ! great clusters of blos 

 soming flowers that call him by their fragrance, 

 and when he has come reward him with a miracle 

 of color. Here is another mystery ; and day by 

 day they multiply and grow yet more wonderful. 

 These varied and marvelous appearances are no 

 longer detached and changeless to him ; they are 

 alive, and they change moment by moment. Ah, 

 the young feet have come now to the very thresh 

 old of the temple, and fortunate are they if there 

 be one to guide them whose heart still speaks the 

 language of childhood while her thought rests in 

 the great truths which come with deep and earnest 

 living. Childhood is defrauded of half its inherit 

 ance when no one swings wide before it the door 

 into the fairyland of Nature ; a land in which the 

 most beautiful dreams are like visions of the dis- 



