But it goes on steadily, in the dry Summer glare, in the drought, and dust, and silence; patiently, uncheered by showers, and with many a leaf curling, many a fruit dropping. Though life often seems monotonous, and prosaic, and dry, it none the less steadily and persistently, and without giving up or losing heart, toils on. Ah, thus in our Summer days, in the time of our manhood, when life’s poetry has fled, and we are not that we wished to be, and we do not that we wished to do; and the romance, and the glory, and the glitter of the once distant warfare, when “Among the tents we paused and sung,” has resolved itself into the stern realities, and prose, and smirch, and dust, of the long toilsome march, the weary watching, and the sob and sweat of the struggle and the contest; when this is so, let us gravely, solemnly settle down to the, at first sight, uncheered duties and blank programme of the work of Summer days. Yes, when the dull every-day routine of dry work is near to making us heart-sick and over-tired; when “Still in the world’s hot, restless gleam We ply our weary task, While vainly for some pleasant dream Our restless glances ask,” let us remember that, whatever our work be, so it be honest, God gave it us to do, and the homeliest act, or repetition of monotonous acts, is ennobled, if the motive be noble, and the labour stedfast and brave--if it be done heartily and well, as to the Lord, and not as unto men. Think of St. Paul making tents--yea, of CHRIST in the carpenter’s shop--and weary not--oh sick at heart, and disappointed of youth’s sweet Spring dreams and high imaginings!--of the work--however homely, however monotonous, however dull and prosaic--which yet God hath given thee to be done. Friends, let us work in Summer days. The Spring is past; we will not, therefore, spend our golden hours in useless regrets. The Autumn has not yet come. But the Summer is with us now. Beyond it there may be a land of Beulah, even here, when the dust, and toil, and strain pass by a little, and something of the old-remembered brightness of colour and beauty flushes over the land. Whether or no such an Autumn-quiet be attained, the Summer will pass, and the great Winter sleep will come. And beyond that there shall be Spring without its evanescence, Summer without its toil and weariness, and Autumn without its melancholy and death. Beyond the short labour of Summer days, “_There remaineth a rest for the people of God_.” Let us, therefore, labour, that we may enter into that rest. [Illustration] MUSINGS IN THE HAY. [Illustration]