Hoar frost, thick
on the fields, made its mornings look as if they had turned gray
with fear. But when the sun arose, grayness and fear vanished; the
back thrown smile of the departing glory was enough to turn old
age into a memory of youth. Summer was indeed gone, and winter was
nigh with its storms and its fogs and its rotting rains and its
drifting snows, but the sun was yet in the heavens, and, changed
as was his manner towards her, would yet have many a half smile for
the poor old earth--enough to keep her alive until he returned,
bringing her youth with him. To the man who believes that the
winter is but for the sake of the summer; exists only in virtue of
the summer at its heart, no winter, outside or in, can be unendurable.
But Malcolm sorely missed the ministrations of compulsion: he
lacked labour--the most helpful and most healing of all God's
holy things, of which we so often lose the heavenly benefit by
labouring inordinately that we may rise above the earthly need of
it. How many sighs are wasted over the toil of the sickly--a toil
which perhaps lifts off half the weight of their sickness, elevates
their inner life, and makes the outer pass with tenfold rapidity.
Of those who honestly pity such, many would themselves be far less
pitiable were they compelled to share in the toil they behold with
compassion. They are unaware of the healing virtue which the thing
they would not pity at all were it a matter of choice, gains from
the compulsion of necessity.
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