Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-09-17


in its bosom. Soon it will offer its harvest of
ice, and the fields will be frozen under the
snow; OH friends, let no heart-ice gather over
the warm affections that give life its worth
and beaGtys thai is the bitterest harvest the
world knows, gathered in with tears, while
we wait patiently, hoping the eternal sun
shine beyond shall melt it all away.
And 50 we drive on through all this "region
of tarie," than which John in Patmos saw
nothing more beautiful in his dreams, nor Ma
homet, when he rode to the seventh heaven on
that wonderful horse, which we have always
thought must have been Pegasus, drive on
into the quiet town, that the industry of
busy mills has built up, with great Wachu-
sett calling to us all the way, in words Of
wisdom, to come up higher, where the pur-
pie distances sweep grandy away and carry
the thoughts with them into infinity. How
silent we have grown this wealth of beauty
does not readily coin itself into words.
factory village-how thrifty and pleasant this
one looks; it seems to have learned lesson
from the mountain, and grown picturesque
and dignified under its shadow. What kind
courtesy and graceful politeness opens the
factory doors to us come into this vast two
acre room full of looms an army might stand
here and be reviewed in comfort, a salute
might be fired here unheard when the looms
are all chatting together, boasting to each
other how much cloth they can make. The
hum and buzz of the machinery carries the
thoughts away to other harvests, the broad
cotton fields, which sin has cursed and blood
is puritying,-the dark gloom of iron mines,
the deadly eXhalations of the coal fields,
whose harvests are gathered with such sweat
and toll; and the fires of the iron mills flare
up in our thoughts and light some ghastly
pictures,-the sunny hills and plains where
sheep pasture, and the shepherd carries the
lambs in his arms,-and so the whirl of wheels,
too, bears us aoft, and the work-day life looks
very sacred as we think how soon all shall be
gathered where there shall be one fold, and
one shepherd.
And now we drive home IN the cleaning,
with some seed-grain, we trust, gathered for
future harvests; with the quiet sense of a
pleasant, friendly day passed not without
pleasure and profit; wherein were planted
seeds of trust to spring up, and flourish, and
fling their fragrance through future years
wherein were gathered some harvests to be
garnered into our lives, a fragrant treasure
for use in winter days. And what do all these
world-harvests point toward? Whittier does
all nature, with its strength and use, its gran
dtur and its beauty, its wisdom and its gentle
ness, tend? The whole creation groaneth
and travaileth in pain together until now,
and this earnest expectation of the crea-
ture waiteth for the manifestation of
the sons of Cod" This splendid Nature
points towards perfect manhood, and all
harvests, in their ripening, prefgure the last
great harvest-NeH. Men-tender and true,
strong and gentle, wise and forbearng!
Men-who would not make the earth blush
for being so beautiful! Men-who should
bring divine fairness and divine justice
and make the politicnl
arena the nOllcet for TRIMMING and deveIon-
ment. Men-who could be trusted outside
their own selfshness! This is the harvest to
sow for; this is the harvest into which the
Devil casts his ;ares. The energies of ma
ture, the providences of God, life's expert
ences-its delights and desolations its glooms
/ and glories, all plough the soil of the heart,
turning under the bright weeds that we cher
| ished; the sternest teachers often fling in the
! seed, we SOW in tears, that may come in
| gadness bringing our sheaves with us. So
| be it, if only the Earth's harvest ripens into
| divine MEN.