A TUFT OF MOSS. 



103 



agreeable unity of sentiment and unanimity of life. It 

 is no more possible to secure harmony among Church 

 members unless in honour they prefer one another, than 

 it is to secure harmony among musical notes unless 

 each is tuned a little lower than its exact due to suit the 

 next note. Only when the ends of God's discipline in 

 us and with us here are accomplished, shall we be 

 brought to the perfect enharmonic condition in heaven, 

 in which each shall have his exact absolute right, and 

 yet be in perfect accordance and sympathy with all 

 others. 



And this self-sacrifice of its own fair proportions 

 which each single moss in the tuft must make in order 

 to accommodate its neighbour, is still further carried on 

 in the way in which the whole tuft is developed. Take 

 to pieces and examine carefully any little cushion of 

 moss from the nearest wall, and you will find that it 

 consists of two layers ; the upper of a rich vivid green, 

 and the lower of a dark brown or black colour. The 

 former is living and growing, and the latter is decaying 

 or dead. The moss-tuft grows in what is called a pro- 

 liferous manner, that is by young shoots springing from 

 the sides or summits of the old ones, and thus often 

 increasing many feet in depth, and forming layer above 

 layer, the uppermost stratum alone being vital, the rest 

 decomposed into peat forming a rich organic soil for its 

 nourishment. Ruskin calls the dark colour of the 

 lower layer " the funereal blackness " of the moss tuft, 

 inasmuch as it is in that way that the moss-leaves die, 

 not of a visible decay and falling, like the leaves of 



