The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-07-31

which to most Of us seem sluggish and
languid, she is working in the fields,
warming and watering, building and
feeding, rip5Ag the grain and the
vegetable and the fruit, and prepar-
ing for man his yearly harvest. And
so If one meditates upon the meaning
of this midsummer-time, he comes very
soon to sense of what is being done
in this world, entirely independent of
man himself, yet for his good, his en-
richment, his increased powers of USE
fulness. There is constant increment
of good things added to his stock and
store. God is forever putting into his
hand an "unearned increase" which is
the contribution to his wealth of those
forces which 1.-the bidding of no mas
ter save God only, titans which none
but Almighty power can control, yet
which he has made the servants of the
human race. And the life and the growth
going on all around us to-day, testify
to the part which heaven is taking in
providing for our wants. The growing
grain, the ripening fruits, these are the
sig:s of that mighty energy at the heart
of the creation, which works while we
sleep, and never tires when we drop our
tools to rest, but gives us the harvest
in its time.
Put your ear to the earth this mid
summer day Listen with an under
standing mind, and what sounds shall
you hear The throb of a vast system
before which the machinery of human
hands shrinks into mere plaything,
whirling million shafts driven at
speed no man could compute, and fash
ioning in the broad fields of human til
lage the coming harvest. Yonder in
that blazing sun is the great engine
which drives the headlong wheels, and
the flying sunbeams run flashing belt
to every rood of ground where vegeta-
ton grows. From earth to air, from
the dark mold which wraps the root, to
the quickening atmosphere where wave
the stalk and the branch, invisible shut
ties of chemic force are flying to and
fro, weaving the fbres which are to be
crowned with the kernels of the corn,
and the wheat, shaping the patterns of
the apple and the grape, potatoes for
your bin, and grass for your hay NOW,
cotton and rice in the far South, bar
ley, and flax, and oats in the North.
All the world around us is one great
factory, working at speed and pressure
to be gagged only by the rush of plan
cts, and the momentum of Jupiter and
Saturn, to prepare the food and the
raiment of the human race. Go look
on the ripening fields and you may see
the fabric coming from the looms, and
almost ready to be cut from the web,
and carted away to your warehouses
and your elevators. And all the sound
you hear with your ear of flesh is the
rustic of the breeze or the patter of the
rain drops; and all the outward eye
may mark is the frightening stalk, and
the rounding fruit. But before the
dwindling stalk and store of the last
harvest is exhausted, Gods mills will
have furnished fresh one, to feed our
hunger, and to clothe our nakedness.
10 favors every year made new,
| o gifts with rain and sunshine sent,
| The bounty overruns our due,
| The fullness shanes our discomfort;
| We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on;
We murmur, but the corn ears fill,
We choose the shadow, but the sun
| That casts it shines behind us STILL"
The riches of the world are growing
in the fields to-day. The dollars of the
exchange, the capitalists profit, and the
working-man's wages, the farmers in
come, and the revenue of the State are
lying under this July sun, half bedded
in the earth, half waving in the air.
The loom and the nillstane must soon
cease to move but for the growing
crops. The rails would soon rust on
the iron highway, and the steamships
lie dismantled at their docks, if it were
not for this annual toll of the industri-
GUS earth to bring forth her riches in
due season. There is never much laid
up in advance in the granaries of the
world, never l think more than six
months supplies ahead. If nature
should fail once, utterly, she would
crush commerce, industry, and every
human enterprise. One season of uni
versal drought, blight, and devastation
would PROSTATE every human interest.
And we come close to this line every
season. 1t has been said that starva-
ton which is often within days march
of countless multitudes of the human
family, is once year within month
of them all. How closely that brings
to every one of US, the generous bounty
of the Lord, as it literally, in this sea-
son, is preparing food for our tables,
work for our fingers, and wealth for
our purses. The goodness of God
waves in every wheat field and shines
in every cleaning spire of grass.
Finally, we have a right to read in
the summertime that assurance of life
as the real principle of creation, which
is so strong support to our faith, so
helpful foundation to our trust in the