246 
RICHES. 
Such groups are often seen in the wheat field 
as deserve the immortality of the pencil. 
There is something too about wheat-harvest 
which carries hack the mind and feasts it 
with the pleasures of antiquity. The sickle 
is almost the only implement which has de¬ 
scended from the olden times in its pristine 
simplicity—to the present hour, neither al¬ 
tering its form, nor becoming obsolete amid 
all the fashions and improvements. of the 
world. It is the same now as it was in those 
scenes of rural beauty which the scripture 
history, without any laboured description, 
often by a single stroke, presents so livingly 
to the imagination, as it was when tender 
thoughts passed 
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home. 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 
when the minstrel-king wandered through 
the solitudes of Paran, or fields reposing at 
the feet of Carmel; or, * as it fell on a day, 
that the child of the good Shunamite went 
out to his father to the reapers. And he said 
unto his father, My head, my head! And he 
said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And 
when he had taken him, and brought him to 
his mother, he sate on her knees till noon, 
and then died.’ 2nd Kings, iv., 18—20. Let 
no one say it is not a season of happiness to 
