ir. THE SWALLOW, 91 



by her faithful return. Type sometimes of 

 the stranger, she has softened us to hospi- 

 tality; type always of the suppliant, she has 

 enchanted us to mercy ; and in her feeble 

 presence, the cowardice, or the wrath, of 

 sacrilege has changed into the fidelities of 

 sanctuary. Herald of our summer, she glances 

 through our days of gladness ; numberer of 

 our years, she would teach us to apply our 

 hearts to wisdom ; — and yet, so little have we 

 regarded her, that this very day, scarcely 

 able to gather from all I can find told of her 

 enough to explain so much as the unfolding of 

 her wings, I can tell you nothing of her life — 

 nothing of her journeying : I cannot learn how 

 she builds, nor how she chooses the place of 

 her wandering, nor how she traces the path 

 of her return. Remaining thus blind and 

 careless to the true ministries of the humble 

 creature whom God has really sent to serve 

 us, we in our pride, thinking ourselves sur- 

 rounded by the pursuivants of the sky, can 

 yet only invest them with majesty by giving 

 them the calm of the bird's motion, and shade 

 of the bird's plume : — and after all, it is well 

 for us, if, when even for God's best mercies, 



