* * * * * I cannot help being also reminded by this history of mowing and growing, of the special field of each human life, with its ever springing, ever falling hopes and dreams. One day it is a carpet of brightness and glory; the next, the withered lines lie on the bare field. Yet look closer, and you will find already the tender green of a new growth appearing to clothe the scarred meadow. A constant succession, ever mown and still growing; every year and often in the year a fresh attire, however the heart, when that common-place desolation was new to it, refused in dismay to believe in the possibility of any further crops. Fond thing! even while it thus protested, _the grass had already begun to grow_; and it was in vain to try in sullenness or self-respect to check the smiling flowers that _would_ crowd up over the ruin. Many a one of us can say, of some past sorrow, that, “When less keen it seemed to grow, I was not pleased--I wished to go Mourning adown this vale of woe, For all my life uncomforted.” It could not be, except in the case of a hypochondriac. In healthy lands the growth cannot be checked. “I thought that I should never more Feel any pleasure near me glow”: and again: “I grudged myself the lightsome air, That makes men cheerful unaware; When comfort came, I did not care To take it in, to feel it stir.” After that devastating flood you did not care to take in the dove with the olive-leaf; you had rather sit moodily alone. Very well for a time, but “will you nill you,” the second crop begins to cover the scars. And soon you can tranquilly and thankfully say, “But I have learned, though this I had, ’Tis sometimes natural to be glad, And no man can be always sad, Unless he wills to have it so.” For it is an ordinance of God that the grass shall keep on growing. * * * * * But, of course, especially, and above all, the analogy before indicated is that which connects this brief life of ours with the grass of the field. We are, above all, alike in our _frailty and evanescence_. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.”