And then there is the earth upon which I stand, strange chemic dust, here covered with grass but elsewhere covered with trees and flowers and hard habitations of men, yielding its perennial toll of beauty. We cannot understand the ground, but its newness, the perennial force with which it produces our food and beauty, this is so patent to all. I look at the ground beneath my feet, and lo, the agedness of it does not occur to me, only its freshness. The good ground! The new earth! This thing which is old, old--old as Time itself--must always have been and must always be. Where was it before it was here? What stars did it make, and moons? What ancient lives have trod this earth, this ground beneath my feet, and now make it? And yet how comes it that I who am so young find it so new to me and myself old as compared with its tremendous age! That is the wonder of this original force to me. And in my yard are trees and little things such as vines and stone walls, which, for all their newness and briefness, have so much more enduring power than have I. This tree near my door is fully a hundred years old, and yet it will be young, comparatively speaking, and strong, when I am no longer in existence. Its trunk is straight, its head is high, and here am I who, looking upon it now as old, will soon be older in spirit, unable to bear the too-heavy burden of a short existence and tottering wearily about when it will still be strong and straight, good for another life the length of mine--a strange contrast of forces. That is but one of the wonders of the forces of life: their persistence. Yet it is this morning waking that impresses the marvel of their greatness upon me. It is this new day, this new-old river, this new-old tree, the new earth, so old and yet so new, which point the frailty of my physical and mental existence and make me wonder what the riddle of the universe may be. [Illustration: The Cradle of Tears] THE CRADLE OF TEARS There is a cradle within the door of one of the great institutions of New York before which a constant recurring tragedy is being enacted. It is a plain cradle, quite simply draped in white, but with such a look of cozy comfort about it that one would scarcely suspect it to be a cradle of sorrow. A little white bed, with a neatly turned-back coverlet, is made up within it. A long strip of white muslin, tied in a tasteful bow at the top, drapes its rounded sides. About it, but within the precincts of warmth and comfort of which it is a part, spreads a chamber of silence--a quiet, small, plainly furnished room, the appearance of which emphasizes the peculiarity of the cradle itself.