16 



leges and books, but tliey must liave men, not children to use 

 them. There is one great true book written by the finger of God, 

 and its pages are opened all ai'ound us, of which those other books 

 are after all only poor and partial translations ; the true book is 

 written as of old, on tables of stone, written not in ink, but in 

 letters of light, and the wide sky, and the wonderful ocean, and 

 the mysterious forests, and the green, cool meadows, and the 

 dreaming flowers, and bird, and tree, and man, are its living 

 pictures and illuminations. This, then, is your birthright, and 

 your inheritance ; not a life of wealth, and ease, and repose, but 

 a life of brave toil and trust. Accept this heritage with joy and 

 gladness, work while it is yet day. Let your life be like the tree, 

 which pauses not in its climbing, until it has reached its ordained 

 height, — the tree which, although rooted in the dark, c6ld 

 "•round, strufrdes towards the liorht, and stretches out its great 

 limbs, tossing and striving upwards, towards the sky. Take this 

 thought with you, but take it in better words than mine — in the 

 words of our noble American poet, Longfellow, whose great true 

 thoughts have found fit utterance in a psalm, a real psalm of life 

 — a fit poem for America : 



Life is real, life is earnest, 

 And the grave is not its goal, 

 Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

 Was not spoken of the soul. 



Let us then be up and doing, 

 With a heart for any fate. 

 Still achieving, still pursuing, 

 Leani to labor and to wait. 



But this rural life does not deal in utility alone, or in the practical 

 teachings of life and duty only, it has its lessons for the heart, 

 its influences upon the aficctions, its sweet, kindly story of home. 

 It seems a paradox to say that you separate men by uniting them, 

 and yet it is true. Li the country you live on your farm, and 

 you have neighbors, though they live half a mile away. In the 

 city you live in a block, and you know not even the name of the 

 family at your next door. In the country, nature, by constant 

 laws, teaches that you are not sufficient for yourself alone. You 

 are dependent on your neighbors in a thousand ways, you need 

 friendship and sympathy. You must borrow and lend, you must 



