No dreamland on earth can be more unearthly in its beauty and glory than the St. Johns in April. Tourists, for the most part, see it only in winter, when half its gorgeous forests stand bare of leaves, and go home, never dreaming what it would be like in its resurrection robes. So do we, in our darkness, judge the shores of the river of this mortal life up which we sail, ofttimes disappointed and complaining. We are seeing all things in winter, and not as they will be when God shall wipe away all tears, and bring about the new heavens and new earth of which every spring is a symbol and a prophecy. The flowers and leaves of last year vanish for a season, but they come back fresher and fairer than ever. * * * * * [Sidenote: A lesson in faith.] On either side, perched on a tall, dry, last year’s coffee-bean-stalk, sit “papa” and “mamma,” chattering and scolding, exhorting and coaxing. The little ones run from side to side, and say in plaintive squeaks, “I can’t,” “I daren’t,” as plain as birds can say it. There,—now they spread their little wings; and oh, joy! they find to their delight that they do not fall; they exult in the possession of a new-born sense of existence. As we look at this pantomime, graver thoughts come over us. And we think how poor, timid, little souls moan, and hang back, and tremble, when the time comes to leave this nest of earth, and trust themselves to the free air of the world they were made for. As the little bird’s moans and cries end in delight and rapture in finding himself in a new, glorious, free life; so, just beyond the dark steps of death, will come a buoyant, exulting sense of new existence. PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND. [Sidenote: Discipline.] The ship, built on one element, but designed to have its life in another, seemed an image of the soul, formed and fashioned with many a weary hammer-stroke in this life, but finding its true element only when it sails out into the ocean of eternity. * * * * * [Sidenote: Heimweh.] But there are souls sent into this world who seem to have always mysterious affinities for the invisible and the unknown—who see the face of everything beautiful through a thin veil of mystery and sadness. The Germans call this yearning of spirit “homesickness”—the dim remembrances of a spirit once affiliated to some higher sphere, of whose lost brightness all things fair are the vague reminders. * * * * * [Sidenote: Limitation.] But Miss Emily knew no more of the deeper parts of her brother’s nature than a little bird that dips its beak into the sunny waters of some spring knows of its depths of coldness and shadow. * * * * * [Sidenote: Learning to love.]