d contains. And all the while we disregard his own patient
writing upon the wall. Every day and every hour we are confronted with
strange marvels, which we dismiss from our minds because, God forgive
us, we call them natural; and yet they take us back, by a ladder of
immeasurable antiquity, to ages before man had emerged from a savage
state. Centuries before our rude forefathers had learned even to
scratch a few hillocks into earthworks, while they lived a brutish
life, herding in dens and caves, the cuckoo, with her traditions
faultlessly defined, was paying her annual visits, fluting about the
forest glades, and searching for nests into which to intrude her
speckled egg. The patient witness of God! She is as direct a
revelation of the Creator's mind, could we but interpret the mystery of
her instincts, as Augustine himself with his scheme of salvation
logically defined. Each of these missions, whether of bird or man, a
wonder and a marvel! But do we not tend to accept the eager and
childish hopes of humanity, arrayed with blithe certainty, as a nearer
evidence of the mind of God than the bird that at his bidding pursues
her annual quest, unaffected by our hasty conclusions, unmoved by our
glorified visions? I have sometimes thought that Christ probably spoke
more than is recorded about the observation of Nature; the hearts of
those that heard him were so set on temporal ends and human
applications, that they had not perhaps leisure or capacity to
recollect aught but those few scattered words, that seem to speak of a
deep love for and insight into the things of earth. They remembered
better that Christ blasted a fig-tree for doing what the Father bade
the poor plant do, than his tender dwelling upon grasses and lilies,
sparrow and sheep. The withering of the tree made an allegory: while
the love of flowers and streams was to those simple hearts perhaps an
unaccountable, almost an eccentric thing. But had Christ drawn human
breath in our bleaker Northern air, he would have perhaps, if those
that surrounded him had had leisure and grace to listen, drawn as grave
and comforting a soul-music from our homely cuckoo, with her punctual
obedience, her unquestioning faith, as he did from the birds and
flowers of the hot hillsides, the pastoral valleys of Palestine. I am
sure he would have loved the cuckoo, and forgiven her her heartless
customs. Those that sing so delicately would not have leisure and
courage to mak