XI 
THE MEADOW LARKS SINGING AND 
SILENT 
HINGS are always happening. Nothing is 
at standstill where God is. I am sitting 
beside a noble river. When coming to this 
particular city I always secure rooms at a cer- 
tain hotel for no reason save that it overlooks 
one of the rivers set apart in my book of days 
as of singular wonder. It is the roadway through 
which three great lakes are adventuring toward 
the ocean. A thousand miles away and more 
the sea awaits the coming of these waters; and 
the waters will not wait. They are ever at 
journey. ‘Tireless under the noon or night, 
bridged by ice or spanned by the vast arch of 
blue which God hath set as a bow of promise, 
never disappearing nor waiting for the tragedy 
of stormy cloud, onward the river walks like an 
army bound for the front. Only silent, silent, 
silent—and sublime. 
This morning the river has on it flotillas of 
ice. The winter is losing grip. The ice floe is 
hungry for the sea, and because the archipelagoes 
are on the river’s breast the motion of the stream 
is strangely and strongly apparent. No stand- 
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