Chapter III: Part 3

What variety in the character of the bird-music! Hark, for a moment, at those wise, solemn caws, and watch those sedate, respectable, gravely-clad Rooks sailing across this opening above us; so black and cleanly painted against the filmy blue. _Caw!_ This is the voice of a steady, respectable mediocrity, that by reason of its deep, portentous gravity, and weighty utterance, and staid appearance, might be almost mistaken for philosophy. True, the utterance, if profound, is not remarkable for variety; but then the manner will often make up for lack of matter. And it is something to have one maxim or apophthegm which may be fitted to every case. To all the world’s customs and businesses, its problems and aspirings, its cries and laughter, he gravely and meditatively listens. And when you eagerly await his verdict, he puts his sapient head on one side, looks at you out of one eye,

“And says,--what says he? CAW!”

The young impatient askers, the subtle and patient tracers of truth’s hidden vein, will chafe at his sedate utterances, and in time take their confidences elsewhere. But he can get on without them, and will never want for company of his kind. Raised above all intellectual excitements, and never in a hurry, the rooks step side by side with stately dignity over the scarred earth; or wing a heavy and cautious flight towards the trees; or sail serene in the still sky. For though there may be times when

“The rooks are blown about the skies,”

this haste is involuntary, and must no doubt for the time much discomfort the methodical and stately traveller. And no doubt such characters are as useful ballast in the world, and well counterbalance the full excited sails, and the mad fluttering pennons above them. Commonplace, unruffled, happy Christians are these; with some they gain reputation for wisdom, with some for folly; but they go evenly on; not much troubled by sunshine or storm; not caring to enter into the dusks and gleams of the more passionate songsters and thinkers; ever with one quiet and not unmelodious answer: a life rather of deeds than of words. _Caw_, to all your spasms and heart-searchings,--and then I must just away to my work. Up in the tall trees, bending and swaying to break off the twigs for the nest; practical, if not colloquial; early at work in the morning, and at home in good time in the evening; a life not excited nor greatly eventful, but that has its own quiet, serene lesson.

A day or two hence we might hear a notable and distinguished visitor to the woods and shrubberies. Even now, I have once or twice paused, half-fancying that I heard his voice, and ready to do honour to such a guest. For, while you are momently expecting to hear the Blackcap, the warbling of the meditative Robin has, here and there, a note which puzzles you. You follow out the voice, and there, on an elm branch, is the dark eye, and the warm breast, and the comfortable shape; and you feel half ashamed to have mistaken such a familiar friend for a stranger.

The Blackcap is indeed a wonderful little warbler. So small and so energetic, thrilling song and swelling throat; brown body and whitish chest and jetty head. There are those who trace a resemblance to the nightingale’s song in its quick joyous utterances. If so, certainly the melody is but a suggestion here and there, and not a sustained and continuous resemblance. Shall I be unkind to the sweet little songster, if here I write that its song has its counterpart in the life of unequal Christians? Many there are who, now and then, in thought, word, or deed, seem to touch some perfect chord, and then disappoint the intent listener by sinking down to the more commonplace again.

A moment, and there seemed a strain of angelic utterance, but it was not sustained, and you turn away disappointed at a more homely song which would otherwise have pleased you well. You do not look for Seraph notes in the hedge-sparrow’s song, or the wren’s chatting, and so you are well content with these. But high hopes unfulfilled become disappointment, and you feel an injury in having to resign the exalted idea which you had taken up; until, at last you see _yourself_ in the sweet, but unequal and inadequate song; and learn to reverence and to love the ever-failing and unsustained effort after higher things. Thus, ay thus, do you aim high, and ever fall below your aim; there is one touch of heaven, and a hundred of earth, in the broken and unsustained song of your life; and yet you would rather strive with hopeless yearning after the nightingale’s music, than acquiesce content with the lesser warblings, which accomplish the less that they attempted. Sing on, then, little bird, to an answering heart! In your song I read the rises and falls, the endeavours and failings, the aspirings and rare glimpses of attainment, which are the sweet exceptions, and the commonplace and every-day Christianity, which is the rule, of a life that would fain become the song of an Angel, but that scarce reaches the homeliest warble of the simplest wayside bird. Let us aim high, if we still fall below our passionate striving; let us never acquiesce quietly in less than Perfection; hereafter--who knows? who knows?

It is evening now, as we wend our way home. A thin sickle of light is barred by the slender topmost ash twigs, and the sky is deepening to that cold, clear dusk, that foreruns twilight. We hear a quiet song, far away--the Woodlark’s note always seems far away--you would have asked me the name of the not-generally-familiar songster, but I have just given it. “_That_, the woodlark? Well, I never heard, or never noticed it before” I dare say. But if is a quiet, saintly song; a heavenly voice, serene and clear, never passionate: a twilight, still, calm song, removed far away from the world’s bustle, and deeply imbued with wisdom and melody from a Land far beyond this eager fevered strife. It is not glad, nor sorrowful; nor so much thoughtful as spiritual. It images to us that life which, separated from the world, is yet not ascetic; unobtrusive, yet fascinating when once perceived and heeded; simple, somewhat as is the language of St. John, but with unfathomable suggestions and revelations when you come to study and learn it. Quite away from controversy and strife, there is in it a divine peace, an entranced contemplation, a serene and peaceful uplifting of the soul. Perhaps the writings of Archbishop Leighton best give words to my ideal of the woodlark’s song.

But those throbbing coos must stay our foot ere we quite leave the wood. The Dove--its voice is, of course, the embodiment of love; troubled, but not passionate; earnest, but not of earth merely. It has a melancholy vehemence, a sobbing urging of its cause, that is rather the voice of one seeking the good of another than its own delight. There is a tremulousness, a trembling fulness that might be that of one bidding farewell in death to some very dear friend whom he fain would win to the right and happy path, but for whom he sadly stands in doubt. There is such abundance from which to speak, such love and such mournfulness in saying it, that you smile with the tears near your eyes, on suddenly recollecting whither fancy was leading you, and that it is, after all, but the old old story being beautifully and melodiously told. For you caught a sight of the ash-blue wing, the mild eye, and swelling crop, and of the mate on a branch close by; and so your fancy was overturned.

But there is one song which we shall not hear yet, as we return home from the wood; of which, nevertheless, some words must be said. Yet what words have even the greatest word-masters yet found for the NIGHTINGALE’S unearthly melody! What other song has even a likeness of the instantaneous and riveting fascination that is produced by one note of this? It is music which speaks, not to what we call the heart, merely, or the intellect, merely, but straight at once to that mysterious divine thing within us, which we call the spirit.

And so it represents that recognition of, and yearning for, an ideal perfection and beauty, which many own, but few can express. And thus we start to hear it represented and embodied in sound without language, and, without knowing how, acknowledge a dumb music in ourselves which is closely akin to this superhuman and unearthly song. And we cannot, if we try, exactly define its character; some call it joyous; more sorrowful. But perhaps there is a hint in it of something within us higher and deeper than either of these; else how can it thus startle and electrify our being? At least it tells us of melody that we cannot yet grasp or fully understand, of beauty and harmony and perfection that is not yet our own. And I liken it to the raptured speakings of the prophet, or to an echo of the angelic messages seldom brought to earth.

Well, ’tis difficult, and perhaps hopeless, to strive to interpret the songs of these little minstrels of God. After all, each heart will set them to words of its own. And, by leading others to do so, perhaps my musings may best fulfil their end. Many a one who would have appreciated them, misses the pictures in earth’s great gallery, and the music of earth’s great concert, for want of a finger to point him once to the one, and a hand on his shoulder to arrest his attention for the other. And it is worth regarding pictures at which God is working, and to listen to songs which yet remain in a saddened world, exactly as He first taught them.

THE MAY-DAYS OF THE SOUL.

“All things are new: the buds, the leaves,
That gild the elm-tree’s nodding crest;
And e’en the nest beneath the eaves:
There are no birds in last year’s nest!”

May has come; that time of year has passed the sweet April time,

“When all the wood stands in a mist of green,
And nothing perfect.”

The sparsely-gemmed hedges have thickened now, so that you cannot see the gardens through their bare ribs; and little bunches of tight-clenched buds give abundant promise of the sweet-breathed, shell-petaled hawthorn flowers. The coy ash-trees have begun to fringe over with their feather foliage; the ruddy bushy growth that seemed comically like whiskers, at the base of the elms and the lindens, has changed into a surprise of glorified green; the low shoots from the stump of the old oak-tree in the hedge bring out their wealth of soft, crumpled, young red leaves; the elders on the banks have gotten a deep, full garment of green upon them now; above the ash-hued stem of the maples there is a numberless array of small maroon-tinged fists; the tender beech-leaves edge the low boughs that are spread out just above the grass.

The birds are full of importance, and excitement, and enjoyment. The robin has his “fuller crimson”; the “livelier iris shines upon the burnished dove,” The black rook sails lazily with broad wing up in the blue sky: he, too, has his high nest to attend to; but life, on such a day as this, imperatively demands to be enjoyed. The copse rings with the laugh of the little willow-wren; the chiff-chaff ceaselessly announces his presence; the woodpecker cries as he leaves tree for tree; the blackcap, not singing just now, makes that “check, check,” like the striking of two marbles together; the cuckoo, besides telling his name to all the hills, has also a low, cooing, wooing voice for his mate; also another cry, as of a startled blackbird, but flute-like and liquid.

“Flattered with promise of escape
From every hurtful blast,
Spring takes, O sprightly May, thy shape,
Her loveliest and her last.”

A sweet grey tint, that had begun to overspread the bare parts of the copse, is deepening into such a sapphire sheet, that our ungrateful hearts half forget or retract the regret they felt, when the fair young hazels and the tall thin ash-wands bowed in the Winter before the cruel bill. Only lately, it seems, on the way across the fields to the station, a delicate fairy mass, the light lilac of the “faint sweet cuckoo-flower,” had spread its kindly screen over the hacked and maimed stumps of the fallen wood. But the hyacinths take their place now; and, after these, we expect the bright rose of the ragged-robin; and, after these, quite a garden of tall spires of the foxglove, alternating from pale to darker red, with, rarely and preciously, a clustered sceptre of milky white.

But why go on to the ragged-robin and the foxglove, later flowers of the year? Truly, there are flowers enough at this season to satisfy the most avaricious. Look but at the yellow meadows of the daffodils.

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er dales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

“Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

So the poet; and how could he but be of a May-day heart, amid such a May wealth of flowers? It was a light, a gleam, a possession that he thenceforth held; a sweet, living landscape of the heart, a landscape alive, indeed, not only with colour and light and shade, but with ceaseless gleeful motion.

“I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.”

No; for often, when May-days were far away, and perhaps shallow snow, streaked with patches of brown land, slanted away under a pale grey sky, even at such times that wealth and glory, and abundance of the flowers, suddenly would

“Flash upon that inward eye,
Which is the bliss of solitude.”

And then, even in a lonely hour, a time of dulness and depression, a time when this sad life seemed saddest; in such a time even, that glad gleeful yellow landscape would come back, with something of the light and joy of a kind deed done, or a strong word said; and, amid the pale snow, and the ever-increasing depression, well can the possessor say that--then,

“Then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”

Life has its May-days, as well as the year. They come, sometimes; rarely to some, but exquisitely beautiful when God sends them--the May-days of the soul. The times when the Winter fogs have passed away, and the clear sun shines down in its glory on the land; the times when the bare brown trees have become ruddy, and have then flushed into crowded variety of leaf; the times when the flowers, that had been thought to be buried for ever, dawn like a smile upon earth’s pale and furrowed face; the times when youth’s forgotten glow comes back, and a hint of the vigour to which dreams seemed realities, and impossibilities possible, stirs the sluggish sap of the soul. Such times there are, when the mists of November have departed, and the frosts of the succeeding months, and the bitter winds of March, and the flooding tears of April; it is the May, with its lavish promise and exuberant life, and ecstatic beauty! Times when illness or earth or laziness or lack of power no longer chill the soul that is indeed eager to burst into leaf; times when we are winged, when the hardest toils are easy to us, the heaviest stone rolled away; times when soul and body seem in perfect accord, and tongue and limb and eye instantly execute the least mandate of the ruler within; times when the ship obeys the lightest touch of the man at the helm; times that come like holidays scattered through the dull half-year of school-days; times of exuberant life and spirits and powers that visit us rarely, sweetly, now and then, as May-day comes in the year.

I often think how little we use life thoroughly; how little we really live our life; how seldom we are in the humour to carry out its great and solemn purposes: how we let its opportunities fly by us, like thistledown on the wind. Why are we not _always_ denying ourselves, taking up the cross, and following our Master? Why are we not _always_ on the watch for every occasion in which a word may be said, or a deed done, or a thought thought, that shall be a protest for Christ, in this vain and sinful world? Why is God’s love but a rare Wintry gleam, and never a steady Summer in our soul? Think, for instance, of such a thing as Prayer; what a wonderful and beautiful thing it is! To kneel, an atom in creation, at the Throne of the Almighty! To be able to bare our hearts to Him, and to feel sure that the least throbs, as well as the great spasms, are perfectly appreciated, felt, understood, sympathised with, by that awful, loving Mind!

And yet, how Wintry our hearts are in our prayers! how seldom they burst into exuberant flower! how constantly the sky above us seems pale and heavy, and dull and impenetrable, and our hearts beneath abiding in their Wintry sleep! Or a snowdrop here and there wanders out, and now and then a pinched primrose--not enough for even the poorest garland.

But that is not all; not only in religion is it that we are more often Wintry-hearted than May-hearted. I have heard of an artist who used sometimes to keep his sitter waiting a whole morning, and at last send him away, unable to _win_ the right humour to his heart, and feeling that his work would not be well done if he _forced_ it. And in reading Haydon’s life you may often find traces of how difficult is this mood to attract, when it has not a mind to come.

So, too, in composition, whether grave or light, how different a thing it is, according to our mood! How delicious a thing is it when the soul has a May-day, and when the pen cannot overtake the mind! when

“Thought leaps out to wed with thought,
Ere thought can wed itself with speech!”

when ideas throng

“Glad and thick,
As leaves upon a tree in primrose time!”

when we seem to see,

“Smiling upward from the page,
The image of the thought within the soul!”

But these times, at least after one has written a good deal, are comparatively rare times, and it is more often February than May within us. A subject that seemed full of leaf when it occurred to the mind some weeks ago, in a May-day mood, stands often a stripped bare Winter tree when we sit down to work it out.

Yes, in most of the business of life that is not mere routine and machine-work, no doubt the soul has its May-days--its times of _being in the humour_ for its work, and of doing that work easily and glibly. How many a Clergyman would endorse this, merely in the every-day case of taking a class in his school! Words, earnest and abundant and interesting, throng forth at one time; at another, how bare the mind, and how unready the tongue!

And now, to what do these thoughts lead us? I think to two considerations--one of warning, one of encouragement.

The warning is an obvious one, and yet one much and often neglected. Let such times of warmth and light and glow and possession of blossom be not only _enjoyed_ but _employed_. The soul’s Flower-time should never be allowed to pass away _without having left some noble fruit set_. It is common-place to repeat that the May-days of the soul are most abundant and most glowing in youth, the May-time of life. And, in connection with this whole subject, I quote, with an addition, Longfellow’s verse:--

“Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth: it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For oh! it is not always May.”

This is gentle and tender advice; and far am I from wishing to correct it, or to do otherwise than allow it, in its degree. Only there is deeper and more grave advice to be given _with_ it, not _instead_ of it. It is well to enjoy the soul’s May-time, but only well if it be _employed_ as well as _enjoyed_; otherwise it will pass, and no trace be left. We may make a great May-day show by merely gathering our flowers and weaving them into garlands; and there may be much dancing and excitement and glee. But then, it seems purely and simply sad to see them next day lying neglected, limp, and withering, in patches and dribblets, on the ground; whereas, although the apple-tree and the primrose bank may look sobered and saddened when their blossom-time is past, you yet know that all trace of that sweet adornment is not lost; they are busy henceforth, maturing fruit and seed from the germs that the bloom has left.

Therefore, to return to the principal thing, namely, Religion: remember, when the blossom-time comes, or returns, that its fairy brightness is evanescent. It must pass, therefore use it; enjoy it, but put it out to usury; let it not fade and fall without having left a germ of noble fruit behind. When the heaven seems open to prayer, when the dull sky has cleared, and, thick and sweet as May-flowers, the earnest longings and ready words burst from your bare heart, seize the auspicious hour; let it not pass unemployed. Do not merely taste, but exhaust its sweetness. When God seems to make His listening apparent, refrain not; besiege His throne with prayers, supplications, praises. And again, when the heart has thawed from its deadness and indifference, and a very May-gathering of zeal for God, of love for God and man, of high and holy yearnings and longings and resolves and purposes, crowd upon the Winter sleep of the soul; oh, then, indulge not in a mere sensuality of spiritual enjoyment; stay not at mere revelling in the warm sky and profuse up-springing of flowers; set to work to form, in that propitious hour, some germs of fruit, some careful reforms, some holy resolves, some earnest and lofty purposes, some self-denials, some pressing towards the mark. Prayerfully and painfully set to work, so that, by God’s grace, when the beauty has gone, the use may remain, and the boughs bend with fruit that were once winged with bloom.

Oh, we all know, I say, these May-days of the soul: times when the love of God seems natural to us, and our hearts overflow into a spontaneous love of man; times when hard things are easy, and Apollyon in the way, or Giant Maul coming out of his cave, rather stir the soul to exultation than daunt it with dismay; times when God seems to us not an abstraction, but a reality; when we can fancy the Saviour beside us, as in old days He stood beside Peter or John; times when it seems a light thing to spend and to be spent for Christ’s sake and the brethren; times when the World has no allurements and the Flesh no power, and Satan seems already beat down under our feet; times when we go out to face the hardest duties with no secret desire that the call on us may not be made, but rather with grave steady resolution and with face set like a flint. There are times, I say, when God’s image seems to shine out for a while, clearly and brightly, from the rust and mildew of marring sin and sloth; times when, Samson-like, we rise from sleep, and the fetters that have hitherto tied us down from life’s great deeds become upon our shoulders like as tow when it hath seen the fire. Yes, May seasons there are for the soul, in which there is a press and hurry of blossom, that is well and fair if it be secured for God.

For, note this--_it is not always May_. The glow will pass, the sunlight die, the flowers will fade, the bird-songs sink into silence. And, if you have not profited by that gleam of heaven which opened upon your soul, you are certain to have lost by it, especially when such a warmth, such a light, broke, by God’s grace, through the dull sky of a cold and worldly life. If any message from God have warmed your bare heart into leaf and bloom, beware how you let the golden opportunity remain unemployed. Beware lest the east winds return, and nip and scatter the frail petals ere the germ of some good fruit be formed. Life is ever offering to us Sybilline books, and very often we have at last to give as much effort in old age, for the attaining of a poor service to God, as we should have given, long ago, for a full, rich, hearty, life-long serving Him. Late or early, however, employ the excitements, the May-warmths of the soul. “Excitement has its uses; impression has its value. Ye that have been impressed, beware how you let those impressions die away. Die they must: we cannot live in excitement for ever; but beware of their leaving behind them nothing except a languid, jaded heart. If God gives you the excitements of religion, breaking in upon your monotony, take care. There is no restoring of elasticity to the spring that has been over-bent. Let impression pass on at once to action.”

The _warning_ was obvious; somewhat less so, perhaps, the _encouragement_. Still, this violet is to be found if we part the brambles, and seek it among its leaves. The May feeling is delicious--is, indeed, a foretaste of heaven, when hard things seem easy to us, and the face of duty is scarce distinguishable from that of pleasure. Prayer is sweet, sweet indeed, when it is easy to pray; praise is delicious when it seems almost the spontaneous growth of the heart. It is pleasanter to speak a painful word, to perform a painful duty, in those moods when the uplifted heart almost exults at having it to do. It is nothing to deny ourselves when some gleam of heaven has so exalted us that the world and the flesh and the devil have nothing to offer which can turn us from the ecstatic contemplation of Christ, and the Home whither He has gone to prepare. But is prayer more acceptable, is praise more beautiful in God’s sight when the heart is all in flower, or when it is Winterly indeed, but exceeding sorrowful at this, and sadly trying to gather for God a snowdrop out of its Wintry beds? Is it more acceptable in God’s sight to speak a true word when the heart is braced and strong, and the effort small, or _still to speak it_ when the heart is shrinking and weak, and the effort great? Is the deed of love or of justice or of self-denial noblest when most easy or when most difficult to be done?

Ah, well, God knows; and He sends the May-days, and He permits the dull days and the bitter winds. Let us serve Him through both, and then all will be well. No doubt we _ought_ always to have a May-day in our heart for this service. And yet, perhaps, indeed almost surely, He does not mean this to be so in this life of discipline. Here it must not be always easy and delicious to serve Him. Here we must serve Him through cold and warm weather, through calm and storm, up the hill Difficulty, as well as in the quiet valley.

Religious feelings are very variable; but rarely, comparatively, a May-day comes: the flowers are few, and the sky closed, almost generally. Let us, then, use diligently the warm blossom-time, when it is with us, but let us not be dismayed when it passes from the soul. _Perhaps_ the best words we say are those that seemed to us the worst, and the teaching that sank most into the heart was that which we thought weakest and most inadequate; thus may God be pleased, while He deigns to use us and to accept our work, yet to keep us humble. Perhaps the service that was so hard to render, and in which we had so to fight against listlessness and wandering thoughts, may, if still earnest, prevail or please more--who knows?--than that which seemed to fly up at once full-fledged to heaven’s gates. If, though limping, we still hobble on with all our might, we may be really making as much progress as when we seemed to be skimming the ground; for God gives both the wings and the crutches. Of course I am not supposing that the hindrances to love and service arise from want of watchfulness, that let the world creep in, or want of prayer for the Help which alone is sufficient for us. But, generally, we must make up our mind to have more days of weary toiling through the desert sands than of refreshments at “Elim, with its palms and wells”; only, when the rare refreshment comes, it should have braced us for the toilsome march, when we must leave the pleasant spot behind, and labour toilsomely on again. And, if May-days of the soul come but seldom now, and it is oftener difficult than easy to serve God now, fear not, fail not, my Brother or Sister. Rejoice that God gives thee something not easy to do for Him, and think of a time, beyond this brief life, when it will be ever natural and instinctive to love and serve God, when it _will_ be “_always May_.”

SUMMER DAYS.

“Consider the work of God.”

We have passed, from late Spring into Summer. Let us go out into the balmy air and mark what changes have passed over the land since we had our Spring scamper among the fields. It will befit these graver months of the year soberly to walk now. And a quiet sauntering walk over the fields is in truth a delightful thing upon a Summer’s day.

How delicious to thread the narrow parting through the deep hay, just ready to be cut, meadow after meadow full of tall, silky, waving grass; here a patch feathery, and of silvery lilac hue; here the rough crowfoot; here the drooping oat-grass; here trembling, delicate pyramids; here miniature bulrushes; and, choice and rare, the graceful quaking grass, with its thin filaments, and its fruit shot with faint purple, and pale green, and light brown. Numberless flowers,--gold, and rose, and crimson, and lilac, and amethyst,--these smile up at you close to the path, and give a sweet hint of stronger colour, far away throughout the hues and many unpronounced tints of the grass.

You spring over a stile, and, sweet surprise! come upon a field half-mown. It is the first you have seen this year,--the first deep ranks of close tall growth falling before the scythe,--the first scent of hay; and the first waft of this is to the scent what the first note of the cuckoo is to the ear. There the deep swathes lie in long rows, the innocent sweet flowers looking up at first with something of sad wonder, but soon drooping in a death which shall not be called untimely, because it is useful, and following on completed work. Of it we may say with the wise king, that “being made perfect in a short time, it fulfilled a long time.” And, like a loved memory after a holy death, the scent of the dying grass and flowers lingers sweetly in the soft air.

Well, we surmount another stile, and enter a wheat-field. How beautiful the myriad stalks and the broad drooping leaves, of a more sober bluer green than that of grass! I always notice that as soon as the hay is made, or making, the full bulging sheaths of the wheat begin to open, and to divulge the secret wealth of the green ear. The pointed flag falls over it; but very soon it bursts the swaddling bands, and rises proudly above the now obsequious deposed leaves, like an heir above his nurses. And then the whole wheat-field stands in blossom, the little trembling stamens escaping all over the husks, and the great width of tall ears begins its solemn stately waving and bending, and its undying whisper in the faint warm Summer airs.

And through the long colonnades there are here also sweet and fair flowers: the bright pimpernel, the dull-grey cud-weed, the glad speedwell, the small blue forget-me-not, the white feverfew,--these are the low carpet growth. Then higher, and like illuminations hung through the columns, there is the rich blue corn-flower, and the purple corn-cockle in its green star-shaped cup; and last in order, but almost first in beauty, the glorious scarlet poppy, with its satin-black eye,--a flower of dazzling splendour, but calumniated and ill-used beyond my endurance. “Flaunting poppies,” indeed! Why, they are the drooping banners of God’s army of the corn! Here they are waving out in all their glory; here they are folded up (somewhat crumpled) within that green case, out of which they are gleaming, just ready to be unfurled for the march. I love the violet--none better; but I protest against the folly, and, in a minor degree, injustice, of instituting an inane comparison between it and the poppy, to the discredit of my favourite of the corn-fields. A better lesson might be taught by pointing out how each fulfils the duties of that state to which it has pleased God to call it: the sweet violet among its leaves, like the modest wife at home; the brave poppy among the open and wealthy corn-fields, like the husband called out into the business of the thronged world.

This is a digression, however. Let us get back to Summer days, and the fallen grass, and the wide wheat-fields in flower.

Many days have not passed before that flower falls, and the delicate paleness of the new-born ear passes away, and the corn-fields settle down to the grave work of the year.

“Long grass swaying in the playing of the almost wearied breeze;
Flowers bowed beneath a crowd of the tawny-armoured bees;
Sumptuous forests, filled with twilight, like a dreamy old romance;
Rivers falling, rivers calling, in their indolent advance.”

That was all very well in the year’s early manhood, scarcely distinguishable from youth. But a more prosaic gravity has toned down those romantic feelings, and it has discovered that there is work, grave work--work sometimes a little wearisome and dull--to be done. The fairy lightness and greenness, the delicacy and exquisite freshness, of the year, have passed away. It is not Dream-land any longer--not a scene of faint rose-flushed or dazzling white blossom, but of hushed, sober colour, and of somewhat of monotony and sameness. The fair Bride fruit-trees are clad in dark garments now, and busy with their families of little unripe things, that have to be educated into ripeness and usefulness. The oaks are no more clad in “glad light green” or very red leaves, and the elms have toned down even the little brightening up of Summer growth at the end of their branches, all into that quiet, dust-dulled, dark hue. And so with all the trees; and under the tall growth of the copses there is not the play and dance of myriad butterflies of sunlight in soft meadows of shade; but the shadow is almost gloomy, and the stillness is quite solemn. Thin tall grass or broad grave ferns have taken the place of the sheets of glad primroses, and bright wood anemones, and azure hyacinths, and rich orchis.

There is no disguising it: the freshness and first energy of things has spent itself and gone, the landscape is dulled and dustied. A little while ago every day was different; now every day seems much the same. There is not the constant progression, the still developing beauty, the ever new delights of every new day. New birds to greet, new clothing for the meadows, new carpets for the woods, new glories for the trees: all these

“Faded in the distance, where the thickening leaves were piled.”

And the year has done with its extravagantly profuse promises, its eager pressing on to some ideal and impossible beauty not yet attained, never to be attained, though it would not believe this, in those old inexperienced days, when it cast away blossom and freshness of leaf as things that did but impede it, in the impatience of its hurry after that Perfection which is a dream on earth, though it be true in Heaven. True also in Him, in whom earth and Heaven have met; this stooping to the tangible, and that raised to the sublime.

Yes, the year seems at a standstill now, and sobered down, and sedate, and hushed. Above all, it is silent. Those ecstatic melodies, those “pæans clear,” that rang out through the groves--the song of the willow-wren, the thrush, the blackbird, the blackcap, the nightingale--all are silent. Even the little robin has no voice for Summer days; only the yellow-hammer reiterates its short, plaintive, monotonous note on the dusty wayside hedge.

“Dear is the morning gale of Spring,
And dear th’ autumnal eve;
But few delights can Summer bring
A poet’s crown to weave.

“Her bowers are mute, her fountains dry,
And ever Fancy’s wing
Speeds from beneath her cloudless sky
To Autumn or to Spring.

“Sweet is the infant’s waking smile,
And sweet the old man’s rest;
But middle age by no fond wile,
No soothing calm is blest.”

Sweet Summer days! I am far from meaning to depreciate you, or to deny to you the need of much beauty and calm delight; but it is true, nevertheless, and must be conceded, that the poet’s complaint has some ground of reason. We miss something in Summer days: it must ever be so in this world. Attainment must ever disappoint: reality is another thing from the image of our dreams. The finished painting is not all that the first rough sketch hinted and shadowed out. Spring may be high-spirited and eager--Summer must ever be grave, and hushed, and sedate.

And what then? Something is missed: but is nothing found? What is the year doing in the gravity, and monotony, and silence of Summer days? Our life is much like that of the year. It has its Spring and its Summer, its Autumn and its Winter. We, too, pass out of youth, and excitement, and impetuosity, and hope, into manhood, and gravity, and calmness--and disappointment. What, then, is the year doing in this stage of its life? If we look aside from our own experience to its example, what does that example teach us?

The question, “What is the year doing?” suggests the answer to our inquiries. The year _is doing_. It is gravely, quietly, perseveringly _at work_. And earnest, hearty, steady work at that which God has given us to do--work hearty, if a little dull and monotonous--this is the lesson taught by Summer days.

Work, steady work, dry, monotonous work, aye, this is the lesson of Life’s Summer; this succeeds its dream-time, this precedes its rest. Yes, in truth, the Spring anticipation and eager energy have gone. The Autumn repose has not yet come. The year is gravely, and steadily, and prosaically at work now; its ardour and ecstasies calmed, its wild impossible hopes toned down, its grace of blossom vanished. All vegetation is busy, maturing seed and fruit, sober grain and useful hay. The earth, like her child, the ant,

“Provideth her meat in the summer,
And gathereth her food in the harvest.”

Toiling in the dust and heat; toiling without rest, wearily often, uncheered by songs. For the little choristers of the trees are themselves grave and sedate now, and busied with their nests, and with the care of rearing their family. There is little change, save a deepening of colour; the morning finds the earth still ceaselessly at work, and in the tender evenings and grey nights, the glimpsing lightnings and the intent stars disclose or behold the same scene:

“Rapid, rosy-tinted lightnings, where the rocky clouds are riven,
Like the lifting of a veil before the inner courts of heaven:
Silver stars in azure evenings, slowly climbing up the steep”:

What do these still discover? What but

“Corn-fields ripening to the harvest, and the wide seas smooth
with sleep.”

Let Summer days then teach us, as, one after one, they greet us and depart, their wise, but unobtruded lesson. The Summer time being the time of grave steady work, and there being also such a time in our lives, a time of dust, and heat, and toil, when our spirits sometimes seem to flag, and the very sameness of labour brings over us a depression, and a lingering longing after the time of blossom, and of clear new verdure; there being this resemblance between us, let us examine the year’s work, if perhaps we may gather some hints for ours. _How_ does the year work? and how should _we_ work, when that first zest that made work easy has gone, and the time of rest is on the other side of our labour.

The year works _thoroughly_, more implicitly obedient than man to this teaching of its Maker,

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”

God seems to have made, in all the wonderful animal and vegetable growth which surrounds us, some to honour, and some to dishonour. Even as with nations, there were the chosen people, and there were those left yet degraded--and as with individuals, there are those whose work is to evangelise a world, and there are those whose work is to follow the plough, or to order the household--so it is with plants, and flowers, and trees.

And from this point of view we shall find that they have much to teach us in our work. How thoroughly it is all done, and with the might; the noble as well as the homely work! There are some plants busy maturing groundsel-seed and beech-mast, some maturing strawberries, and peaches, and pines. But each does _its utmost_, and the _work_ of the inferior degree is equal in quality with that of the higher. The shepherd’s-purse and the thistledown are as perfectly and exquisitely finished, as are the apricot and the grape.

And this strikes me as leading up to a cheering and beautiful thought--to a thought which has often occurred to me in reading the parable of the _Talents_. There is, let me remark, this difference between this parable and that of the Pounds: that in the one case the _work_ was equal in quality, bearing exactly the same proportion to the advantages, which were dissimilar; in the other case the advantages and opportunities were the same for each, but the _work_ was unequal and greatly differing in quality. Thus each has its separate teaching.

And in this parable of the Talents, the same heartening thought came to me as that wafted from fields, and trees, and gardens, on the breath of Summer days. It was cheering, and a matter of much thankfulness, to recollect that it was possible, in a low condition, and with less advantages, to serve God in the same proportion with the greatest of God’s saints: to fight as well and as nobly in the ranks as any officer could do who waved his soldiers to the charge. It was, I say, very comforting to read, after

“Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have
gained beside them five talents more”;

and the “Well done” that followed--it was exceedingly sweet to read, farther on,

“He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou
deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two
other talents beside them.”

And then to hear just the same ringing glorious words, “Well done!” words that come like a burst of joy-bells across the heart. For I said to myself, “Cheer up, and be bold,--humble, insignificant, lowly though thou be, and sorrowfully, impotently longing to do great things, to fight a good fight, for Him who died for thee and rose again. Yea, be of good courage, and do even thy best with that thou hast. The one had ten talents to bring, the other but four, yet cheerily, bravely, modestly, did he bring them; the amount was different, _the work was the same_. Each had wrought in the same proportion. He with five talents had indeed doubled them. But he with two talents _had likewise doubled these_.”

Therefore, men, my brothers, women, my sisters, let us thank God and take courage. Let us not repine if our sphere be narrow, and our work seemingly insignificant; let us not look enviously at those with great talents, and grand opportunities, and wide work. Let us take heart, as we look at the tiny wayside plant, and at the laden fruit-tree, all at work, under the sun, in the quiet Summer days. There is no caprice, but there is much to surprise us in the allotment of work in God’s world. So, art thou an oak, capable, as it seems to thee, of great deeds and noble fruit? Scorn not, however, to spend thy life making and maturing acorns, if thus it please God to employ thee. Art thou a lowly strawberry plant, weak, and easily trampled, and (thou deemest) capable of nothing worthy? Shrink not, at God’s bidding, to endeavour to fashion rich and precious fruit, which, if thou art patient and faithful, God’s rain shall nourish, and His sun shall ripen. Such an oak might St. Paul have seemed, chained to the Roman soldiers, yet I wot he then fashioned acorns, whose branches have since overspread the world. Such a lowly plant was Moses, deprecating God’s behests at the burning bush. Yet I trow that was noble fruit that he was enabled to mature.

For the comfortable thought is, that we work not in our own strength, nor from our own resources. God supplies strength and material, and then undoubtedly it is for us to use them. Yet the principle of growth is His gift; and so also are the sun, and the wind, and the rain. Without Him, we can do nothing. But with Him, everything.

“I can do all things,--through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

Let us then be brave-hearted and true-hearted, and learn this lesson from the earth’s work under the sun. Never to envy nor to repine, nor to be amazed at life, but just to give all our heart to the maturing and perfecting the work which God has entrusted to us to do for Him--if in the garden bed, the choice fruit; if by the wayside, the small seed which He has prepared for us to tend. Let us work _thoroughly_, in these short Summer days.

Another hint from the year’s work. It works leisurely, bringing forth fruit _with patience_. Thus the poets sweetly describe its work:

“Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud,
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steeped at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and, turning yellow,
Falls and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweetened with the Summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent Autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens, and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast rooted in the fruitful soil.”

Thus flower, and leaf, and fruit, do their part thoroughly, and expect God’s blessing patiently, and trustfully leave all to Him. There is no hurry, though there is no idleness or slackness. Again, as a contrast to our heat and fever, and hurry, and distrust, regard the sublime calm of nature:

“Sweet is the leisure of the bird,
She craves no time for work deferred;
Her wings are not to aching stirred,
Providing for her helpless ones.

“Fair is the leisure of the wheat;
All night the damps about it fleet,
All day it basketh in the heat,
And grows, and whispers orisons.

“Grand is the leisure of the earth;
She gives her happy myriads birth,
And after harvest fears not dearth,
But goes to sleep in snow wreaths dim.”

Yes, as the Great Teacher said (and the saying seems to me one of the most suggestive of even His sayings), the earth brings forth her fruit _with patience_. And now, what a contrast is this to our work! How distrustful, how impatient we are! How apt to be in a hurry! We would have the whole long Summer’s work done in the first short Spring day. We want the leaves perfect, and the blossom gone, and the fruit not only set, but ripened all at once. We cannot ourselves bring forth fruit with patience, nor be content to wait its gradual growth and ripening in others.

I give two examples of this. One is of the education of children. We want the ripe fruit, too often, before the bud has even well developed for the bloom. What unnatural precocity do some well-meaning religious parents bring out, and exult over, in the little delicate undeveloped minds that God has given to their care. It pains me to read the stories that are so prized by some people. They force upon one the sense of such utter unreality. What experience has that infant mind gathered of the deep feelings and inward struggles, the defeats and victories, the repentances and recoveries, the depressions and ecstasies, the wrestlings in prayer, the astonishments, the dismays, the failings, and the attainments, that are familiar to the veteran in the battles of the Lord? And yet we would make him talk the language of the soldier of the hundred fights, when, only very lately brought into the camp, he does but sit among the tents, hardly yet even seeing or hearing

“The distant battle flash and ring.”

Experience will come, but until he has had it, why should you require its tokens? The war is at hand, but is it wise to bid him ape its trophies while its grim earnest is scarcely yet to him a dream? Parents, anxious parents, heartily do I sympathise with your yearnings. You long to know certainly that your child is indeed a faithful and obedient child of God. Nevertheless, to hurry the work is often to mar it. Forced fruit, if you get it, is poor and flavourless, compared to the natural growth. And how much falls blighted from the bough! You have seen gooseberries red before full grown, and while others about them were green. But you know that this is not ripeness, but only its caricature. And I have seen such a mere painful caricature in the talk and conduct of the child. Be content,

“Learn to labour,--and to wait.”

Put in the seed watchfully, wisely, diligently, not rashly, nor over profusely; pray before, and during, and after the sowing; and then trust to God and wait. Dig not up the seed to see if it is sprouting; despair not if through long Winter months scarce any tender blade appear; suffer that the ground which ye have diligently, painfully, prayerfully sown, should _bring forth fruit with patience_.

My other instance is that of the desire and endeavour for holiness. How many that are but beginners in the race, chafe and fret because they cannot be at once at the goal. How many a one, but a babe in holiness, expects to be at once a man, without the gradual growth, the patient succession of day and night, and sun and shower, through this dusty toilsome Summer of our life. And depression, discouragement, sometimes falling away, results on this unwise hurry. The seed tries to grow with unnatural rapidity, and, therefore, having no root, it withers away. Oh wait, and work, and trust, seedling saint, and fear not but that God will send the full growth: yea, if thou wilt, even bid thee bend with fruit an hundredfold for Him. Only remember, God’s order is, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.

Yes, let us take comfort from the thought of the gradual growth and ripening of Summer days. Every day’s sun, every night’s dew, add a little. And at last the grain bows heavy and ripe, and the fruit reddens upon the branch, and weighs it towards the ground--that was once but a thin weak blade, or a small crude, sour, green bullet.

And---for an ending of the discourse of Summer days--working thoroughly, and working patiently, the earth also works _steadily_ on, and in spite of discouragement; of the loss of many dreams, and the experience of many failures. Its songs have gone; its freshness is over-gloomed; and dust has gathered upon its light and glory. Blights, and caterpillars, and frosts, have marred much; and the poetry and early fascination of Spring is over now.