the nebula which now bejewels Andromeda's girdle become evolutionized
into a flora and a fauna, a civilization and a spirituality unto which
the visions of the wisest seers have never attained? Shall this
subtle, evanescent mystery which we call life, which glorifies so many
varied forms, be wholly lost, or shall it pass joyfully through the
ether to some brighter and better world? Is it true

_"That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That no one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete?"_

We are scarce a step ahead of our forefathers. We do not know.

_"Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last to all,
And every winter change to spring."_




II. FEBRUARY IN STORM AND SHINE.


February often opens with a season of cold gray days when stratus
clouds, dark and unrelenting as iron, hang across the sky and bitter
winds from the northwest blow down the Iowa valleys and over the
frost-cracked ridges. In the city the wheels crunch on the scanty
snow, and every window is made opaque by the frost. Trains are many