dear
mother,' he wrote, 'and are grown old in this Valley of Tears; but you
say always, as all of us should say, "Have we not many mercies too?"
Is there not above all, and in all, a Father watching over us, through
whom all sorrows shall yet work together for good? Yes, it is even so.
Let us try to hold by _that_ as an anchor both sure and steadfast.'
Which is another way of saying, 'It is all right, mother mine. Let
them wander as they will whilst the sun is high; when it slants through
the poplars the cows will all come home!'

The homeward movement of the cows is part of the harmony of the
universe. Man himself goeth forth, the psalmist says, unto his work
and to his labour until the evening. Until the evening--and then, like
the cows, he comes home. It is this sense of harmony between the
coming of the cows on the one hand, and all their environment on the
other, that gave Gray the opening thought for his 'Elegy in a Country
Churchyard':

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Here are two pictures--the tired ploughman and the lowing herd both
coming home; and the two together make up a perfect harmony. It is a
stroke of poetic genius. We are made to feel the weariness of the
tired ploughman in order that we may be able to appreciate the
restfulness of the evening, the solitude of the quiet churchyard, and
the cows coming slowly home. I blamed myself at the beginning for
sometimes getting caught in the fever and tumult of life; but then, if
I never knew such exhausting experiences, I should never be able to
enjoy the delicious stillness of the evening, I should never be able to
see the beauty of the herd winding so slowly o'er the lea. It is just
because the ploughman has toiled so hard, and done his work so well,
that his weariness blends so perfectly with the restfulness of the
dusk. For it is only those who have bravely borne the burden and heat
of the day who can relish the sweetness and peace of the twilight. It
is a man's duty to keep things in their right place. I do not mean
merely that he should keep his hat in the hall, and his book on the
shelf. I mean that, as far as possible, a man ought to keep his toil
to the daylight, and his rest to the dusk.

Dr. Chalmers held that our three-score years and ten are really seven
decades corresponding