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majestic beautj. The Puritan settler, stern but kindly, the red 

 men, with their dark, unfathomable eyes, have vanished away, 

 and rest beneath their shade no more ; the old house is fast fall- 

 ing to decay ; the trees, too, will fade and fall some day, but those 

 old, simple words have a more enduring life. I never look upon 

 those trees, but the words " trees of peace," return again with 

 sweet, soothing music. Yes, those words have their own natural 

 music, and will not leave off their singing. Trees of peace ! Can 

 you not see those vast grey, gigantic arms stretching out over the 

 roof-tree to shelter and protect that quiet home — dropping down 

 their rich clusters of green leaves, and waving them to and fro with 

 soft music in the sweet sunshine ? — dropping down their deep shad- 

 OAvs on the soft turf ? Can you not look back to those old days, 

 and see the young children playing in the grass ; and the wild 

 flowers playing like children in the shadows ? Those shadows seem 

 deeper, and the green turf seems softer for those old simple words 

 of promise, and I have come at last to feel that every man who 

 plants an elm tree to shelter and adorn the home of his aifections, the 

 home of wife and child, plants a " tree of peace there." The Indian 

 still sends it from out the wild woodlands ; the sweet sunshine and 

 the quiet shadows promise him peace and rest beneath its shade. 



There is still left to us all, an inherited memory of that antique 

 Hebrew feeling of the sweetness of repose, under one's own vine 

 and fig-tree, of that deep and intense feeling of repose which the 

 children of Israel, exiles and aliens in Egypt, the wanderers for 

 forty years in the grey, weary desert, might well feel when, amid 

 the green hills and forests of Judea, they could find rest at last for 

 their travel-worn feet, could leave their folded tents, and make them- 

 selves homes at last in that land — then so beautiful and fair. We 

 inherit something of that old, deep feeling, for we too, must in some 

 way be exiles and wanderers before we find repose, and the drooping 

 elm tree at the door, the dewy rose-bush at the window of home, 

 the fragrant honey-suckle at the porch, all are " trees of peace !" 



This rural life does not teach industry solely, nor cultivate the 

 affections alone, it appeals to all our higher faculties, it refines 

 and elevates, it teaches us that there is a beauty in flower and 

 tree, in sunshine and shadow, and in the waving bough, in the 

 golden green light of the woods and meadows, and in the great wild 

 woodlands, which was not bestowed without purpose, nor in vain. 



