with the seven days of the week. Six of them, he
said, should be spent in strenuous endeavour. But the seventh is the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God, and should be spent in Sabbatic quiet.
That ideal is not always capable of realization. For the matter of
that, it is not always possible to abstain from work on the Lord's Day.
But it is good to keep it before us as an ideal. We may at least
determine that, on the Sunday, we will perform only deeds of necessity
and mercy. And, in the same way, we may resolve that we will leave as
little work as possible to be done in the twilight of life. It was one
of the chiefest of the prophets who told us that 'it is good for a man
to bear the yoke in his youth.' If I were the director of a life
insurance company, I should have that great word blazoned over the
portal of the office. If, by straining an extra nerve in the heyday of
his powers, a man may ensure to himself some immunity from care in the
evening, he is under a solemn obligation to do so. The weary ploughman
has no right to labour after the cows come home.

For, in some respects, the sweetest part of the day follows the coming
of the cows. I have a notion that most of the old folk would say so.
During the day they fancied that the cows had gone, to return no more.
But they all came home. 'And now,' says old Margaret Ogilvy, 'and now
it has all come true like a dream. I can call to mind not one little
thing I ettled for in my lusty days that hasna' been put into my hands
in my auld age. I sit here useless, surrounded by the gratification of
all my wishes and all my ambitions; and at times I'm near terrified,
for it's as if God had mista'en me for some other woman.' They
wandered long, that is to say, and they wandered far. But they all
came home--Cherry and Brindle, Blossom and Darkie, Beauty and Crinkle,
Daisy and Pearl--they all came home. Happy are all they who sing in
their souls the milkmaid's song, and never, never doubt that, when the
twilight gathers round them, the cows will all come home!

II

MUSHROOMS ON THE MOOR

Mr. G. K. Chesterton does not like mushrooms. That is the most
arresting fact that I have gleaned from reading, carefully and with
delight, his _Victorian Age in Literature_. In his treatment of
Dickens, he writes very contemptuously of 'that Little Bethel to which
Kit's mother went,' and he likens it to '_a monstrous mushroom_ that
grows in the moonshine and dies in the dawn.'