and pleads her message to his stricken people. It is so true and prophetic
that we quote the words written in April, 1866.

"For Spring is a true Reconstructionist, -- a reconstructionist
in the best and most practical sense. There is not a nook in the land
in which she is not at this moment exerting her influence in preparing a way
for the restoration of the South. No politician may oppose her;
her power defies embarrassment; but she is not altogether independent of help.
She brings us balmy airs and gentle dews, golden suns and silver rains;
and she says to us, `These are the materials of the only work
in which you need be at present concerned; avail yourselves of them
to reclothe your naked country and feed your impoverished people,
and you will find that, in the discharge of that task,
you have taken the course which will most certainly and most peacefully
conduct you to the position which you desire. Turn not aside
to bandy epithets with your enemies; stuff your ears, like the princess
in the Arabian Nights, against words of insult and wrong;
pause not to muse over your condition, or to question your prospects;
but toil on bravely, silently, surely. . . .'

"Such are the words of wise and kindly counsel, which, if we attend rightly,
we may all hear in the winds and read in the skies of Spring. Nowhere,
however, does she speak with so eloquent a voice or so pathetic an effect
as in this ruined town. She covers our devastated courts
with images of renovation in the shape of flowers; she hangs once more
in our blasted gardens the fragrant lamps of the jessamine;
in our streets she kindles the maple like a beacon; and from amidst
the charred and blackened ruins of once happy homes she pours,
through the mouth of her favorite musician, the mocking-bird,
a song of hope and joy. What is the lesson which she designs