ken snatches, and at last the full
chorus of song, choir answering to choir, the morning hymn of the
forest.

Now, in the very tree beneath which the man lay, Chrysostom, the
thrush, took up his parable, and preached his morning sermon; and if it
had been set to words, they might have been something like these:--

"Sing! sing, brothers, sisters, little tender ones in the nest! Sing,
for the morning is come, and God has made us another day. Sing! for
praise is sweet, and our sweetest notes must show it forth. Song is
the voice that God has given us to tell forth His goodness, to speak
gladly of the wondrous things He hath made. Sing, brothers and
sisters! be joyful, be joyful in the Lord! all sorrow and darkness is
gone away, away, and light is here, and morning, and the world wakes
with us to gladness and the new day. Sing, and let your songs be all
of joy, joy, lest there be in the wood any sorrowing creature, who
might go sadly through the day for want of a voice of cheer, to tell
him that God is love, is love. Wake from thy dream, sad heart, if the
friendly wood hold such an one! Sorrow is night, and night is good,
for rest, and for seeing of many stars, and for coolness and sweet
odours; but now awake, awake, for the day is here, and the sun arises
in his might,--the sun, whose name is joy, is joy, and, whose voice is
praise. Sing, sing, and praise the Lord!"

So the bird sang, praising God, and the other birds, from tree and
shrub, answered as best they might, each with his song of praise; and
the man, lying motionless beneath the great tree, heard, and listened,
and understood.

Still he lay there, with wide open eyes, while the golden morning broke
over him, and the light came sifting down, through the leaves,
checkering all the ground with gold. The wood now glowed with colour,
russet and green and brown, wine-like red of the tree-trunks where the
sun struck aslant on them, soft yellow greens where the young ferns
uncurled their downy heads. The air was sweet, sweet, with the smell
of morning; was the whole world new since last night?

Suddenly from the road near by (for he had gone round in a circle, and
the wooded hollow where he lay was out of sight but not out of hearing
of the country road which skirted the woods for many miles), from the
road near by came the sound of voices,--men's voices, which fell
strange and harsh on his ears, open for the first time to the music of
the world, and stil