f making known the proclamation of mercy which has not at least as
many birds as there are in June and as many flowers as the dumb meadows
know how to bring forth; any method of bringing before men the doctrine
of salvation which does not make everyone feel, 'There is hope for me
in God--in the divine plan, in the very nature of the organization of
human life and society,' is spurious--is a slander on God and is
blasphemy against his love."

Hope hath her harvest also for teachers and reformers. Often men think
their work is squandered. They seem to be sowing seed not upon the
Nile, to find it again abundantly, but in midocean, to sink and come to
naught. Parents and teachers break their hearts, fearing their
watchfulness and instruction have failed. Men sow wheat and wait six
months for a harvest; but they sow moral seed Sunday and on Monday whip
their children because the seed has not ripened. They forget that
apples bitter in July may be sweet in August. To-day's vice in the
child is often to-morrow's virtue, as acid juices through frost become
saccharine. Yesterday the mother rocked a little angel in the cradle;
to-day she moans: "Alas, that I should have rocked a little fox, a
little serpent, a little wolf!" To-morrow the child becomes a model of
truth and integrity.

The sage might have said: "It is good that woman should hope and wait."
Truth's errand has always been a successful errand. Not a single
social truth or civic truth or moral truth has ever been lost out of
the world. Secrets of cruelty and fraud, secrets of oppression and sin
perish, but nothing that makes life happier or better hath been
forgotten. We do not have to keep God and truth alive, they keep us
alive. Vegetable seeds can be killed, but not moral seeds. When God
issues his silent command to the earth flying into winter and wheels it
back toward summer, it is given to no man to put a brake upon warmth;
nor can he go up against the spring with swords and banners. But
easier this than staying the upward march of mankind. God is abroad
upon a mission of recovery. Open thy hand, O publicist! and sow thy
seed. The seed shall perish, but not the harvest.

Our childhood was pleased with the story of the old monk who was
shipwrecked alone on a desert isle. He always carried with him a few
roots and seeds. Planting these, he died, but sailors coming twenty
years later found the isle waving with fruit trees. To the beauty of
this