Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1891-12-03
THE GOOD or RAIN.
Some of the Blessings That Como with

Some of the Blessings That Come with the
Showers.
When we complain of the rain, as we
too often do if it be continuous or ia
terfere with our plans and pleasures,
we are showing a poor comprehension
OF the ways of nature, of its, ceaseless
ene6cence, and of its wise purpose.
Perhaps we are showing also q great
want OF the love of beauty; for there is
wonderful beauty in the gray cope of
a low-hung sky, in the soft down.s1ip.
ping OF silver showers againstthe green;
and there is, besides, a rare exhilara.
ton to be found in the wild wind blown
rushing and pouring of the easterly
gale. with the low bending and swing
Ing and beating of singing boughs, and
the keen crying of the blast. '.Lf it
would only rain and De done with itr'
one exclaims; IF it would do all it's
raining in the night!' cries another.
the one ignorant that because of the
colder air much more rain does fall in
the night and 10th with strange refer
ence to that impersonal agency 1T" in
their language. Yet the varying fire.
quency of showers is thing, after all,
much more agreeable both as to dust
and vegetation than long periods of
rain and drought would be; and the
shut-in seclusion of an occasional day
OF steady down-pouring. and the seem
ing familiarity with nature which we
feel when looking out at her without
her full regalia of sunshine and blue
sky, are both a part of pleasant exper-
fence. 'siEft3t5 +E IS
But apart from the external beauty
or from the domesticity of life on
rainy day, there is a folly-to call it no
worse-in impugning the arrangements
of nature which should give the grumb-
Ter pause, if view of its uses
and the facts of its design does
not The ,childishness of Struggling
ones shoulders at the inevitable, at the
movements of power outside and be-
yond us, and not in any way to be
reached by us, is so evident that it
would seem as if any who had arrived
at years Of discretion should be
ashamed of it If we do not like a
climate, rainy or otherwise, of caprici-
GUS or of settled weather, we are at
liberty to change it; let us strike our
tents and go elsewhere. We are poor
incapable dolts, bound and chained by
circumstance instead of mastering cir
cumstance, if we can not get away;
and so decent self-respect should OBJ
Gge us to be silent
When we see the vapor-laden atmos-
phere depress our own systems, cause
the swelling of tissues SO that joints
and hard muscles and corns and cal
louses, unable to stretch out with the
rest, can only ache; when we see it act
on the nervous organization of all brute
beings, making them dull and lethargic
for want of oxygen, so that cows low,
and horses whinny, and sheep shelter
themselves where they can, the air all
the time too heavy to hold up the fall
ing smoke; and when we see this mois-
the copper and zinc vessels, nothing but
oiling and SO shutting out the direct
touch of the atmosphere hindering it,
gold and platinum being the only OBJ
jects of the sort uninjured by the
dampness, which dulls lead and tar
nishes silver-then we should know in
stinctively that it is better for the rain
to gather and condense and fall, and
thus dissipate and discharge and put an
end to that form of injury, than to hang
uniformed, and in a condition almost
as different from the blessed rain
as the soil that makes the flower is
different from the flower the flow
! err in which the constituents of
the rain return to the sunlight.
For not only does the rain,
by dissolving the earthly and fertilizing
substances around plants roots, af-
forded it nourishment, but it directly
contributes to the plants substance
both carbonic acid and ammonia. Even
in the form Of snow it is invaluable; for
the snow, being a very poor conductor
of heat, causes the earth to keep what
heat it already has, shutting it in as a
coat of ermine would, while the car
! bonic acid which it carries penetrates
the sod and WHITES and cnriches it.
That mighty poet who wrote the Book
of Job knew we'll what he was talking
about when he told of the treasures of
the snow. And on the larger scale,
pouring in tropical parallels into the
rivulets and lakes at the sources of
great rivers such as the Nile and the
Amazon, in what vast sheets of food
bearing, life-giving richness it over
flows the plains, and affords superb fer
tility and plenteous harvests! And rain
is, moreover, the great purifying agent
of the earth, as wind is of the air, wash
ing out stagnant places, cleansing
bitches, leaving sweet what was foul,
and carrying all filth away to brooks
and rivers and SEAS to mingle with an
infnity of other drops, till all that is
injurious Is distracted and precipitated
and lost. -Harper's Bazaar.