"The truly good and great is the useful; for in that is the Divine
image. Softly and unobtrusively has the dew fallen, as it falls
night after night. Silently it distilled, while the vagrant meteors
threw their lines of dazzling light across the sky, and men looked
up at them in wonder and admiration. And now the soft grass, the
green leaves, and the sweet flowers, that drooped beneath the
fervent heat of yesterday, are fresh again and full of beauty, ready
to receive the light and warmth of the risen sun, and expand with, a
new vigor. All this may be tame, and commonplace; but is it not a
great and a good work that has been going on?

"The tiller of the soil is going forth again to his work. Do not
turn your eyes from him, and let a feeling of impatience stir in
your heart because he is not a soldier rushing to battle, or a
brilliant orator holding thousands enchained by the power of a
fervid eloquence that is born not so much of good desires for his
fellow-men as from the heat of his own self-love. Day after day, as
now, patient, and hopeful, the husbandman enters upon the work that
lies before him, and, hand in hand with God's blessed sunshine,
dews, and rain, a loving and earnest co-laborer, brings forth from
earth's treasure-house of blessings good gifts for his fellow-men.
Is all this commonplace? How great and good is the commonplace!"

I turned to answer the old man, but he was gone. I was standing on a
high mountain, and beneath me, as far as the eye could reach, were
stretched broad and richly cultivated fields; and from a hundred
farm-houses went up the curling smoke from the fires of industry.
Fields were waving with golden grain, and trees bending with their
treasures of fruit. Suddenly, the bright sun was veiled in clouds,