EAELY SPRING. 21 



spirit recognizes the goodness of God in the weakest 

 as well as in the strongest of things ; and to my mind 

 it seems that while I am thankful to Him for the 

 lustre of the evening sky, for food and raiment, for 

 the bestowal of friends, for the sustenance of hope 

 and faith, for the prolongation of life, though the 

 heart may have sorrowful tombstones in it, still, I 

 fall short and forget if I am not thankful, too, for the 

 sweet shape, and hue, and odor, of that sea-side this- 

 tle, since it possesses not only an immaculate beauty 

 of its own, but, associated as it is with the sound of 

 the waves, and with events long since passed, becomes 

 a keynote forever to some of the sweetest experiences 

 of bygone life. All things deserve such thankfulness, 

 the commonest as well as the grandest, for the common 

 ones are the heritage of the poor, given them " with- 

 out money and without price, " so that it is but sim- 

 plest philanthropy to be glad of the presence of what 

 all can enjoy without cost/ 7 



These, however, are matters rather divergent from 

 the idea of plant-life in early spring. The appearance of 

 the buds of trees is without question the most reliable, 

 since there is a greater steadiness and exactitude in 

 the succession and periodicity of their vital phenomena 

 than occurs in very many herbaceous plants, though 

 to appearance the latter may be quite as regular. It 

 is not a little curious that the renewal of trees by 

 annual shoots developed from buds is a matter of 



