toleration in one century, to know that not until another century hath
passed will the precious harvest be reaped. Man is accustomed to brief
intervals. Not long the space between January's snowdrifts and June's
red berries. Brief the interval between the egg and the eagle's full
flight. Scarcely a score of years separates the infant of days from
the youth of full stature. Trained to expect the April seed to stand
close beside the August sheaf, it is not easy for man to accustom
himself to the processes of him with whom four-score years are but a
handbreadth and a thousand years as but one day.

To man, therefore, toiling upon his industry, his art, his government,
his religion, comes this reflection: Because the divine epochs are
long, let not the patriot or parent be sick with hope long deferred.
Let the reformer sow his seed untroubled when the sickle rusts in the
hand that waits for its harvest. Remember that as things go up in
value, the period between inception and fruition is protracted.
Because the plant is low, the days between seed and sheaf are few and
short; because the bird is higher, months stand between egg and eagle.
But manhood is a thing so high, culture and character are harvests so
rich as to ask years and even ages for ripening, while God's purposes
for society involve such treasures of art, wisdom, wealth, law,
liberty, as to ask eons and cycles for their full perfection.
Therefore let each patriot and sage, each reformer and teacher be
patient. The world itself is a seed. Not until ages have passed shall
it burst into bloom and blossom.

Troubled by the strifes of society, depressed by the waste of its
forces and the delays of its columns, he who seeks character for
himself and progress for his kind, oft needs to shelter himself beneath
that divine principle called the time-element for the individual and