TWO friends were walking together beside a picturesque mill-stream.
While they walked, they talked of mortal life, its meaning and its
end; and, as is almost inevitable with such themes, the current of
their thoughts gradually lost its cheerful flow.
"This is a miserable world," said one; "the black shroud of sorrow
overhangs everything here."
"Not so," replied the other; "Sorrow is not a shroud. It is only the
covering Hope wraps about her when she sleeps."
Just then they entered an oak-grove. It was early spring, and the
trees were bare, but last year's leaves lay thick as snow-drifts
upon the ground.
"The Liverwort grows here, one of our earliest flowers, I think,"
said the last speaker. "There, push away the leaves, and you will
find it. How beautiful, with its delicate shades of pink, and
purple, and green, lying against the bare roots of the oak-trees!
But look deeper, or you will not find the flowers; they are under
the dead leaves."
"Now I have learned a lesson that I shall not forget," said her
friend. "This seems to me a bad world, and there is no denying that
there are bad things in it. To a sweeping glance, it will sometimes
seem barren and desolate; but not one buried germ of life and beauty
is lost to the All-seeing Eye. I, having the weakness of human
vision, must believe where I cannot see. Henceforth, when I am
tempted to complainings and despair on account of the evil around
me, I will say to myself, 'Look deeper, look under the dead leaves,
and you will find flowers.'"