Spring Days in Winter 283 



embracement of love in the air. It is so rich, so 

 clearly sweet, so invigorating, so lifting, so as 

 piring, that profound thoughts fill the soul of the 

 wanderer, thoughts of what must lie beyond this 

 dust. Is all this infinitude of charm and sense of 

 life that begins not, nor ends, to be expended 

 solely on the transitory race of men ? It has a 

 greater, a wider, a more enduring purpose, and 

 that purpose can be nothing less than the on-go 

 ing development of the life of the soul. Do we 

 feel in the air nothing but the slight impact of a 

 wooing movement on our faces, nothing but the 

 fierce attack of a storm-dispersing blast, nothing 

 but a physical mechanism strange to us in its 

 origins, but nevertheless merely functional in the 

 growth and ruin of this globe of ours ? Not so. 

 It is the essential and divine life of all that is, soul 

 and body, origin and environment, source and 

 end, that thrills, conflicts or soothes in these ele 

 mental manifestations. In truth, he who knows 

 not that God is, and (as the scripture says) is a 

 rewarder of those who seek Him, has yet much 

 to learn before he can hope to go, free of soul and 

 brave of heart, into the inheritance which God 

 hath prepared for them that love Him. 



