The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beyond the Marshes, by Ralph Connor

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Title: Beyond the Marshes

Author: Ralph Connor

Release Date: March 1, 2008 [eBook #24724]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND THE MARSHES***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

BEYOND THE MARSHES

by

RALPH CONNOR

Author of "Black Rock" and "The Sky Pilot"

The Westminster Company Limited
Publishers
Toronto

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by The Westminster Company,
Limited, at the Department of Agriculture.

Have you ever caught the scent of the clover as you were whirled away
by the train beyond the city on a summer's day and sped through the
rich pasture lands? And do you remember how you stepped forth at the
first halting-place to secure a sprig of the sweet, homely flower that
had spoken to you so eloquently in its own language, and how you
pressed it in your book? Does not its perfume remain with you till
this day? And every now and then a fragrance is wafted to our inner
senses as we read some simple story which is to us as a breath of the
clover, bringing us a message of sweetness and beauty, and going
straight to our hearts with the power that belongs to the secrets which
lie hidden at our lifers core.

And this sweet prairie idyll is surely one of those fragrant messages
which lays its hold on us as we pause for a moment in the midst of our
fevered lives and anxious thoughts, and step across the threshold of
that chamber where we must needs put our shoes from off our feet, for
the place whereon we stand is holy ground. And as we press on again to
life's duties, may we bear with us something of the precious perfume
diffused by plants which are divine in their origin and which must be
divine in their influence.

ISHBEL ABERDEEN

[Transcriber's note: "ISHBEL" is correct. It is not "ISABEL",
misspelled.]

BEYOND THE MARSHES

The missionary of the Bonjour field found me standing bag in hand upon
the railway platform watching my train steam away to the east. He is
g