dscape. The
few, far clouds, soft and white, float slowly in the azure sea and now
and then approach the throne of the king of day, sending dark shadows
chasing the sunlight over the smiling fields. When these shadows reach
the nearer woodlands across the valley on the right it is as if a
moving belt of dark pines was swiftly passing through the deciduous
forest. We think of Birnam wood removing to Dunsinane, but that was
trivial compared with this. The dark belt of shadow makes a strong and
beautiful contrast to the reddish brown and gray of the winter woods.

The river is more than bank full. Shut in on one side by the high
ridge upon which we are standing it has spread over half a mile of
bottom on the other side. Once more, after many months of waiting we
rejoice in the gleam of its waters. The broad valley, which has so
long been paved with white, is bottomed with amethyst now, the fainter
reflection of the azure sky above. The trees which have so long stood
comfortless again see their doubles in the waters below. The huge gray
trunks of the water elms and the silver maples, the red rags of the
birches and the delicate tracery of their spray, the ruby gold of the
willows, the shining white of the sycamores, the ashen green of the
poplars and the dark crimson of the wild rose and the red osier
dogwood,--all these are reflected as from a vast mirror.

There is not a ripple on the surface. But anon a belated ice floe
comes down the main channel and shows how swiftly the waters are
flowing now that they once more move "unvexed to the sea." There are
still some masses hugging the shore. One by one they slip into the
waters and float away,--just as a man's prejudices and delusions are
the last to leave him after the light of truth and the warmth of love
have set his soul free from the bondage of error and wrong.

The stillness is a marked contrast to the recent roar of the winds.
You may hear your watch ticking in your pocket. The leisurely tapping
of a downy woodpecker sounds like the ticking of a clock in a vast
ancestral hall. You may actually hear a squirrel running down a tree,
twenty rods away. He paws out an acorn and begins to eat. The noise of
your footstep seems like a profanation of holy ground. Also it
disturbs the squirrel who scurries up to the topmost twigs of an elm
nearly a hundred feet high. With a glass you may see his eyes shine as
he watches you. His long red tail hangs down still and straight and