he sun was high and the day was growing much
warmer--I turned from the road, climbed an inviting little hill, and
chose a spot in an old meadow in the shade of an apple tree and there
I lay down on the grass, and looked up into the dusky shadows of the
branches above me. I could feel the soft airs on my face; I could hear
the buzzing of bees in the meadow flowers, and by turning my head just a
little I could see the slow fleecy clouds, high up, drifting across the
perfect blue of the sky. And the scent of the fields in spring!--he who
has known it, even once, may indeed die happy.

Men worship God in various ways: it seemed to me that Sabbath morning,
as I lay quietly there in the warm silence of midday, that I was truly
worshipping God. That Sunday morning everything about me seemed somehow
to be a miracle--a miracle gratefully accepted and explainable only by
the presence of God. There was another strange, deep feeling which I had
that morning, which I have had a few other times in my life at the rare
heights of experience--I hesitate always when I try to put down the
deep, deep things of the human heart--a feeling immeasurably real,
that if I should turn my head quickly I should indeed SEE that Immanent
Presence....

One of the few birds I know that sings through the long midday is the
vireo. The vireo sings when otherwise the woods are still. You do not
see him; you cannot find him; but you know he is there. And his singing
is wild, and shy, and mystical. Often it haunts you like the memory of
some former happiness. That day I heard the vireo singing....

I don't know how long I lay there under the tree in the meadow, but
presently I heard, from no great distance, the sound of a church-bell.
It was ringing for the afternoon service which among the farmers of this
part of the country often takes the place, in summer, of both morning
and evening services.

"I believe I'll go," I said, thinking first of all, I confess, of the
interesting people I might meet there.

But when I sat up and looked about me the desire faded, and rummaging
in my bag I came across my tin whistle. Immediately I began practising
a tune called "Sweet Afton," which I had learned when a boy; and, as
I played, my mood changed swiftly, and I began to smile at myself as
a tragically serious person, and to think of pat phrases with which to
characterize the execrableness of my attempts upon the tin whistle. I
should have liked some one near to jo