What harshness in fathers, who fear to praise their children!
What severity in some teachers! What bitterness in our
muck-rakers and reformers! How seldom do we find a man who can
speak the truth, and speak it in love. Yet there are some things
that harshness can not do. In February the clods are hard,
the seeds dead, the roots inert, the boughs leafless. Now let
nature speak in terms of power. She lets loose the north wind,
to smite the branches; she beats the bare clods with hail and
snow. In a tempest of fury she commands the earth to awaken.
But power is impotent; not a root stirs, not a seed moves.
Then, when the storms and winds have published their weakness,
the south wind comes softly wooing. Summer speaks in love. The
mother heart caresses each sleeping seed, and wakens it with
bosom pressure. And every root and bough answers with beauty and
radiant loveliness. Amid this is the parable of influence, that
rebukes man’s harshness, and smites those who turn justice into
cruelty and cause their good to be evil spoken of.--N. D.
HILLIS.
(1355)
=Harvest=--See FERTILITY.
=Harvest Failures=--See CHOKED.