how sometimes the ice goes out of a river? From shore to
shore it has been frozen, cold and hard. For many months it has grown
solid, deepening and thickening until it seems as if there could be no
life left beneath. Then, at last, comes sunshine and rain and warmth.
The huge mass looks as impenetrable as ever, but all at once, some
day--crack!--the first thin, dark line spreads across the surface.
Then--_crack, crack!_--_crack, crack!_--in every direction the ice is
breaking up. Look quickly, now, if you would see that frozen surface
stretching seamless between shore and shore--for suddenly dark lanes of
water open up, which widen while you watch--and soon, incredibly soon,
the river has burst its bonds and is rushing freely once more between
its banks, with only the ever-diminishing blocks of melting ice upon its
surface to tell the story of its long imprisonment.

Even so, on that memorable Christmas night, did the ice in the North
Estabrook church break up. _Crack!_--George Tomlinson and Asa Fraser,
old friends but sworn foes, had shaken hands. _Crack!_ Mrs. Tomlinson
and Mrs. Fraser, tears running frankly down their cheeks, had followed
the example of their husbands--and glad enough to do it, for their homes
lay side by side, and each had had a hard time of it getting along
without the other. Miss Jane Pollock, seeing Mrs. Maria Hill's fruitless
search for her handkerchief, had long since drawn out one of her
own--she always carried two--and had held it in her hand, ready to offer
it, if she could just get to the point. But when she saw, upon the
pulpit platform, those two gripping hands, somehow she suddenly reached
the point. _Crack!_ --With no difficulty whatever Miss Pollock slipped
the handkerchief into Mrs. Hill's hand, whispering commiseratingly:
"I presume you've got one somewhere, Maria, but you just can't lay your
hand on it. Don't take the trouble to return it--it isn't of any value."

And Mrs. Hill, accepting the handkerchief, wiped away the unmanageable
tears, and turning round answered fervently; "I guess I _will_ return
it, Jane, if it's only so's to come to your house again--if you'll let
me in, after all I've said."

Even as they smiled, shamefacedly but happily, at each other, similar
scenes were being enacted. All about them spread the breaking ice.
Incredible, that it should happen in a night? Not so. The forces of
Nature are mighty, but they are as weakness beside the spiritual forces
of Nat