first pea he saw. Had there but been a crumb, or a morsel of cheese,
he would have left thee thy white pea. . . Hark how he sings his
little song of praise! . . . Is it not wonderful to call to mind how,
centuries ago, when white-robed Druids cut mistletoe from British oaks,
the robin redbreast hopped around, and sang; when, earlier still, men
were wild and savage, dwelling in holes and caves and huts of mud, when
churches and cloisters were unknown in this land and the one true God
undreamed of, robins mated and made their nests, the speckled thrushes
sang, 'Do it now--Do it now,' as they sought food for their young, the
blackbirds whistled, and the swallows flashed by on joyous wing. Aye,
and when Eve and Adam walked in Eden, amid strange beasts and gaily
plumaged birds, here--in these Isles--the robin redbreast sang, and all
our British birds busily built their nests and reared their young;
living their little joyous lives, as He Who made them taught them how
to do.

"And, in the centuries to come, when all things may be changed in this
our land, when we shall long have gone to dust, when our loved
cloisters may have crumbled into ruin; still the hills of Malvern will
stand, and the silvery Severn flow along the valley; while here, in
this very garden--if it be a garden still--the robin will build his
nest, and carol his happy song.

"Mark you this, dear Mary Antony: all things made by man hold within
them the elements of change and of decay. But nature is at one with
God, and therefore immutable. Earthly kingdoms may rise and wane;
mighty cities may spring up, then fall into ruin. Nations may conquer
and, in their turn, be conquered. Man may slay man and, in his turn,
be slain. But, through it all, the mountains stand, the rivers flow,
the forests wave, and the redbreast builds his nest in the hawthorn,