34 BIRD PARADISE 



I get a new revelation of the diversity of gifts, all 

 in the house of the same spirit. The birds are 

 interpreters of the abundant life, and the book of 

 their scripture speaks with full voice of the good- 

 ness of the common Father. 



I passed yesterday a brook that flows from the 

 hillside — a full, cheery stream in the first step it 

 takes. I lingered a little while to give greeting 

 to one of the children of the fields and groves 

 that always seems to me a living thing. Did 

 you ever shake hands with a brook? — a real 

 hearty, whole-souled hand-shake? If there be a 

 sacrament of life in the great church of nature I 

 am sure it is found in the brook, as it is discov- 

 ered nowhere else. This particular stream rip- 

 pled away for a hundred yards, then crossed the 

 road, and just ambled off through a pasture that 

 seemed made especially for it. The channel in 

 the field was shallow, too shallow for the water 

 that would flow in its bed. How easily the 

 brooklet met the new conditions. Like a good 

 general in a strange land it threw out skirmish- 

 ers upon both flanks, and I noticed that in their 

 advance they covered the entire ground clear to 

 the base of the hills on each side. The grass in 



