SPRING IN THE NORTH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2735, 15 August 1906, Page 65

SPRING IN THE NORTH.

Over the ridges abruptly rising, down thij slopes so deeply dipping, the breath of Spring has passed, and greener, greener are the hills, greener still the gullies. It has played round the fruit trees and called to birth' the buds, and here and there the tender green leaves. It has lingered caressingly among the bare branches of the tall white poplars, and now there is sur-s promise of the pale greea leaves, winch shall ere long clothe them with beauty. Where the weeping willow* droop their long withes low over th» waters, the breath of Spring has begun that grace of loveliness so restful to the eye in the glowing heat of summer: It has blown softly, sweetly over the flowerbeds, and called up the golden daffodil and sweet narcissus, and spread around the fragrance of violets. Forth from the tangled grass by the roadside it has lured the pale, purple perriwinkles, in their clinging loveliness. Away across the widestretching brown fern of the King Country it hies, and green intermingles with the brown, and the native heather is hung with white bells, pink-tipped; while nearer on every hand the plough turns up the brown earth that it may receive Spring's fragrant blesjsing. From every shrub and tree birds are trilling forth glad greeting to this the season of hope. Truly

All the air is thrilling with the spring.

Was ever line so exquisite or so expressive? Can you not feel it in every part of your being — this thrilling in the air? Does it not call you with an irresistible voice to go out and revel in the joys that come with spring, the- tasks it brings? Thank God — thank God every day, every hour of your life if so be that you can respond to that call ; for whatever may fill your life — of gloom» of hardship, of heartburning — this still is worthy of deepest thanksgiving that you may go out to greet the spring in health and strength. And you, stricken ones, whom sickness, pain, weakness holds in thrall, even you may feel this sweetest thrilling. If Spring come* to call the glad, the strong, the free out to work or revel, to you it comes with a whisper of bettev_ things to come. She tells you in the bloom of the flowers, in budding of the leaves, in the blue of the skies, in the balmy brightness of the air — in all these she tella you that winter is pßst. It has fulfilled its mission of rain, wind, and frost. Through all its message runs a full, sweet undertone. Some day the winter of your life shall be passed,

and you shall realise more fully than were possible bub for those winter days how sweetly "all .the air is thrilling with the spring." Into the homes where stands the vacant where dwell the hearts aching by reason of a great roid, steals softly the breath of Spring, to whisper of resurrection and reunion, where death is swallowed up in victory, and parting may not come. The hopeless, despairing ones — those who have had high, ideals, who have made high resolves, only to learn that they have fallen far short of their ideals, that their resolves have resulted but in nothingness and 1 worse, till now they have lost faith in themselves, ; and are likely to slip further from all that is good and pure and true because of that loss, — surely to them Spring come* to restore hope and faith. Can t they look at the green snoots upspringing fro» the brown earth everywhere, at the soft new leaves upon the "trees, and not j remember how, so short a time since, th« bulbs from which those shoots are springing were seemingly dry and lifeless; ih» branches, so beautified now by leaves, bate and stark; and can they remember these things and witness the changes wrought > without being inspired to new hope and j faith and courage, to stronger, more per-* i severing effort. No, surely; for, consoi* ' ously or unconsciously, all yield to the> sweet, beninoent influence a* loving God designed the sweet season Spring to exer-

cise over a!

VIOLET.