loud in the stillness. Under the forest trees around the home of
the Merediths only drops of dew might have been heard splashing
downward from leaf to leaf. In the house all slept. The mind,
wakefullest of happy or of suffering things, had lost consciousness
of joy and care save as these had been crowded down into the
chamber which lies beneath our sleep, whence they made themselves
audible through the thin flooring as the noise of dreams.

Among the parts of the day during which man may match the elements
of the world within him to the world without--his songs with its
sunrises, toil with noontide, prayer with nightfall, slumber with
dark--there is one to stir within him the greatest sense of
responsibility: the hour of dawn.

If he awaken then and be alone, he is earliest to enter the silent
empty theatre of the earth where the human drama is soon to
recommence. Not a mummer has stalked forth; not an auditor sits
waiting. He himself, as one of the characters in this ancient
miracle play of nature, pauses at the point of separation between
all that he has enacted and all that he will enact. Yesterday he
was in the thick of action. Between then and now lies the night,
stretching like a bar of verdure across wearying sands. In that
verdure he has rested; he has drunk forgetfulness and self-renewal
from those deep wells of sleep. Soon the play will be ordered on
again and he must take his place for parts that are new and
confusing to all. The servitors of the morning have entered and
hung wall and ceiling with gorgeous draperies; the dust has been
sprinkled; fresh airs are blowing; and there is music, the living
orchestra of the living earth. Well for the waker then if he can
look back upon the role he has played with a quiet conscience, and