14 IN THE ACADIAN LAND. 



"What it hath wrought is better than hath been ; 

 Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans 

 Its wistful hands between." 



An evolutionist may fail to believe in God, 

 and there are irreverent astronomers, but the 

 God of an evolutionist is not a shadowy possi- 

 bility, nor an absentee deity from this world, 

 but an indwelling presence, not identical with 

 material nature, but no material world apart 

 from him. He may say for himself, 



"I am the mote in the sunbeam, and I am the burning sun. 

 ' Rest here," whispers the atom ; I call to the orb, ' Roll on ! ' 

 I am the blush of the morning and I am the evening's breeze 

 I am the leaf's low murmur, the swell of the terrible seas ; 

 I am the breath of the flute, I am the mind of man ; 

 Gold's glitter, the light of the diamond, the sea-pearl's lustre 



wan; 



I am what was, will be, creation's ascent and fall ; 

 The link, the chain of existence, beginning and end of all." 



We are not heedful enough of our trees. 

 When Abraham bought the field and the cave 

 of Machpelah "all the trees that were in the 

 field, that were in all the borders round about, 

 were made sure ; " and he did not cut them down, 

 but sat under their shade, where aforetime he 

 had entertained angels. A treeless world would 

 be a manless world, so far as this planet is con- 

 cerned. The forests can do better without man, 

 but we could not do without them. Not only do 



