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ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



WAITING TO GROW. 



T ITTLE white snowdrop, just waking up, 

 I j Violet, daisy, and sweet buttercup ! 

 Think of the flowers that are under the snow, 

 Waiting to grow ! 



And think what hosts of queer little seeds 

 Of flowers and mosses, of ferns and weeds 

 Are under the leaves and under the snow, 

 Waiting to grow ! 



Think of the roots getting ready to sprout, 

 Reaching their slender brown fingers about, 

 Under the ice and the leaves and the snow, 

 Waiting to grow ! 



Only a month or a few weeks more, 

 Will they have to wait behind that door ; 

 Listen and watch for they are below 

 Waiting to grow ! 



Nothing so small, or hidden so well, 

 That God will not find it, and very soon tell 

 His sun where to shine, and his rain where to go, 

 To help them grow ! 



FORGIVENESS. 



WHEN on a fragrant sandal tree 

 The woodman's ax descends, 

 And she who bloomed so beauteously, 

 Beneath the weapon bends. 

 E'en on the edge that wrought her death, 

 Dying she breathes her sweetest breath, 

 As if to token in her fall, 

 Peace to her foes and love to all. 



How hardly man this lesson learns, 



To smile and bless the hand that spurns, 



To see the blow, to feel the pain, 



And render only love again ! 



One had it, but he came from heaven, 



Reviled, rejected and betrayed, 



No curse He breathed, no plaint He made, 



But when in death's dark pang He sighed, 



Prayed for his murderers, and died. J. EDMONDSTON. 



