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waits for the coming rain, but it comes not. The earth is 

 parched and dry beneath his feet. The Heavens above him 

 are red with their brazen heat, and the disheartened farmer 

 must look on his withering and wasting crops, as helpless as 

 the shipwrecked mariner, floating on at the mercy of the 

 great deep sea. For to make an effort of resistance is to cope 

 with the Infinite forces of nature. But suppose a remnant of 

 what gave so much promise a short time since, is left him ; 

 and he begins to hope that something after all will be left 

 him ; then come the swarming insects and the countless 

 hordes of vermin that crawl at his feet, or fly in the air, and 

 after these have taken their share of the precious fruits, there 

 is but little left for the early frost, that leaves our corn fields 

 as black and as barren as the plains of the Nile, when the 

 overflowing tides refuse to come. But suppose this picture 

 to be a little overdrawn. Suppose the harvest redeems the 

 promise of the spring time and the summer, and the root 

 crops groan and gTow, and the corn fields laugh in the sun- 

 light, and the trees are loaded with their golden fruit ; the 

 granaries are full, the barns can hold no more, the store- 

 houses burst forth with their rich treasures. Then he is told 

 that the markets are full, and that there is no sale for his 

 products, at a remunerative price, and he knows not whether 

 to pray to be delivered from his friends or his enemies. Now 

 the farmer standing in the presence of such defeat, and some- 

 times disaster, as this, needs a well cultivated moral nature, 

 that will produce in him a faith and confidence in God, the 

 Creatorandthe Ruler of this universe, to whose infinite mind all 

 these mysteries of nature are as apparent as the daylight, and 

 under whose control all the elements move in their order, 

 and who has sworn by himself that seed-time and harvest, 



