that a deluge had been requisite to purify it. These upspringing
islands are the greenest spots in the landscape; the first gleam of
sunlight suffices to cover them with verdure.

Thank Providence for spring! The earth--and man himself, by
sympathy with his birthplace would be far other than we find them if
life toiled wearily onward without this periodical infusion of the
primal spirit. Will the world ever be so decayed that spring may
not renew its greenness? Can man be so dismally age stricken that
no faintest sunshine of his youth may revisit him once a year? It
is impossible. The moss on our time-worn mansion brightens into
beauty; the good old pastor who once dwelt here renewed his prime,
regained his boyhood, in the genial breezes of his ninetieth spring.
Alas for the worn and heavy soul if, whether in youth or age, it
have outlived its privilege of springtime sprightliness! From such
a soul the world must hope no reformation of its evil, no sympathy
with the lofty faith and gallant struggles of those who contend in
its behalf. Summer works in the present, and thinks not of the
future; autumn is a rich conservative; winter has utterly lost its
faith, and clings tremulously to the remembrance of what has been;
but spring, with its outgushing life, is the true type of the
movement.