THE GLORY OF THE DAY.


"Be not anxious about to-morrow. Do to-day's duty, fight today's
temptation; and do not weaken and disturb yourself by looking
forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if
you saw them."--_Charles Kingsley._

Nearly all of us have heard about the little child who one day planted
seeds and kept constantly digging them up afterward to see if they
were growing. No doubt the child learned that a seed needs not only
ground and care, but time. When it is put in the earth it begins to
feel its place and to get at home; then, if all is quite right,--but
not otherwise--it sends out a tiny rootlet as if it would say that it
trusts and believes the earth will feed that rootlet. And if the earth
is kind the root grows and finds a solid foothold. At the same time
there is another thing happening. When the seed finds it can trust
itself to root it feels no longer afraid to show itself. It goes down,
down quietly for a _firmer hold_, and upward feeling the desire for
light.

_A firm hold and more light_, we cannot think too much of what they
mean.

Every day that the seed pushes its tender leaves and stem upward it
has more and more to encounter. The rains beat it down; the winds bend
it to the very earth from which it came; leaves and weeds bury it
beneath their strength and abundance, but despite all these things, in
the face of death itself, the brave little plant strongly keeps its