The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1862-05-03

The following beautiful passage occurs
in a. sermon recently preached BY Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher
There is something even more touching
than this. 1t is the flight of birds. All
j summer they have filled the woods. They
/ sing from the trees. They rise from tire
thickets and weed muff1ed fences, as in our
wanderings we scale them. They sing IN
/ the air. They wake US with their mathis.
| They chant vespers with glorious discor-
dance of sweet melody. They fit across
| the lawn, rise and fall on. the swinging twig,
or rock to the wind on their aerial perch.
But after August they become mute; and
! in October days they begin to recede from
the dwelling. No more twittering wrens;
no more scircling' swallows; no more gro
tesque bobolinks; no more larks, singing
as if they were heart broken. They begin
now to come in troops in the distant field.
At sunset the pasture is full of focks of
hundreds and thousands. At morning
! they are gone. And every. day brings its
feathery caravan Every day they pass on.
Long focks of fowl silent move far up
against the sky, and always going away
string of water-fowls, flying. low, and visit
luI Oh SOul6 pOn0 lOI 1CSb sbA iOOOs hAA 'AS
air with hoarse trumpeting and clangor
They are going; the last are going. Win
ter is behind them; summer is before them;
and we are left. The season is bereft
Light is short; darkness is long. Flowers
are sunken to rest: The birds have flown
away. Winter, ao;Rter, WINTER is upon the
earth.
At last come the December days. The
L =. cou Io,, Sofa n
alike Then the solar blaze creeps forward
a minute in the evening. A little more;
again more, till half hours ring around the
horzon-till hours are strung upon the
days-till the earth comes back-till ponds
unlock themselves. The. forests grow pur
pie twigged. The great winds sigh and
rage. March busters and smiles by turns
"a giant that now is cross, and now kind.
The calves begin to come. Lambs bleat.
The warm hills are plowed. At last the
nights are without frost. At length we
wake, some unexpected morning, and the
blue. birds call is in the tree. We throw
up the sash. The sun lies flush on all the
landscape. There is smile of soil and
leaf in the air. The poplar buds are fra
grant as balm. The air is warm and moist.
The birds are surely here; they answer
each other; the sparrow, the blue bird, the
robin, and, afar off, on the edges Of the
swamp, the harsh, twanging notes of the
blackbird. 1t is spring 1t is time of the
singing of the birds Nobody forgets the
wild thrill Of the heart at the first sound of
birds in spring. ...r r.. fl.r
Oh, with what sense of emancipation
do we hear the birds sing again God
sends choirs to sing over night and death
for us. Winter, that buried all, is herself
put away. Death is swallowed up in vic:
tory, and nature chants the requiem of the
past, and the joy of the future. Now, days
shall grow longer, and warmer. Now, in
dustry shall move freely. Now, flowers
shall come up. Seed shall be sown. Doors
and windows shall stand open all day long.
Around about the barn the hens shall cackle
and crow. Children shall shout. Spring
has come; and all things rejoice at their
release. No more inhospitable snow; 40
more blight of cold. Ali is promise. Men
go forth with seed, and roots, and scions.
The orchard, and garden, and field, are full
of life! 40 f-s--.aI 4 .'s.l~ -
"The winter is past, the rain is over and
gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the
time of the singing of birds is Gomez ana .,
the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
Is this, now, mere ornamental passage
of scripture Scripture has no passages
that are mere ornaments. Things ofha-
mental there are in it. but they carry mar
row and meat. Unlike all other literature
Scripture never merely decorates. Ii tnere
is figure, it is always for some errano OF
moral meaning. There is no description s
sake There is no poetry for mere 9sthet-
ical pleasure. There is Away profit withal.
Nature, then, teaches that TO every sea-
CON of trouble, and overthrow. there comes
resurrection. In the deepest January of
the year there is nerve that runs forward
to june. Life is never extinguished. That
which seems to be death, reaches forward
and touches that which is vital.
Estimating the old army ration at four"