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Patience. 
“Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait.” 
— Longfellow. 
I EMBLEMATICALLY, “Green Ears” is suggestive, also, of Patience. 
^ The Green Ear is not a mushroom,—or, like Jonas’ gourd,—spring¬ 
ing up in a night. If so, it would perish in a night. 
All God's best, noblest works are sloio and gradual. 
The same, indeed, is the case with the highest works and triumphs 
of man, whether in literature or art, science or philosophy. Perhaps, the 
greatest painter that ever lived (Leonardo da Vinci) was the slowest and 
most laborious. Lie took sixteen years to complete his “Last Supper.” 
'No lesson is, perhaps, more needed for some, especially young people, 
than quiet Patience and resolute endurance. 
“With Patience bear the lot to thee assigned; 
Nor think it chance, nor murmur at the load,— 
Por, know what man calls ‘fortune,’ is from God!” 
— Rowe. 
“In patience possess ye your souls,” 
Make up, then, your minds for the possibility, nay, the certainty of 
toil and drudgery and difficulty. “Behold, the husbandman waiteth for 
the precious fruit of the earth, patiently bearing till he receive the early 
and the latter rain.”* IIow many there are who measure life and charac¬ 
ter by rapid success!—forgetting that character is built up; principle is 
slowly moulded, fostered, developed. Gradually you must live down bad 
habits ;•— gradually you must ripen in vigor of purpose. 
“First the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear.” 
—St. Mark, iv, 28. 
The Divine method and sequence is— “Out of iveakness , made 
*St. James, v : 7. 
