The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1920-11-26
Divine Lesson in
the Garnering Of
the Golden Grain

Inc SUlmTner Is over ana the. mar
vest is past. The sad skies, the bleak
fields, the bare trees, the raw winds
that whistle and grOan and sob and
sigh their dirges mournfully remind us
that the season of fruitage has gone
by and the time has come when we
can only turn away, each to himself,
and measure up our garnerings.
Nature gives US a seed time and q
harvest time.
But these would be meaningless to
US did she not also send a season
when. at the warning touch of winter
chill, we must measure our gains and
consider our losses.
But for the lessons Of this season
no man would labor; we would know
naught of temperance or thrift; we
would go through the bright spring
only singing, and die away the sum
mer in dreams.
SO it is part of the divine plan that
each of us should now go apart and
carefully separate the wheat from the
chatf, the flowers from the weeds, and
that which is good and sound and en-
during from all that pcrisheS and
taintS. 1t is now that each must hon
estly examine and weigh the product
of his own works.
1t were useless now to try to de-
ceive even ourselves.
Now, If at no other time, we see
the vast difference In value between
the picked fruit and the windfallS.
The n heap we proudly store
whole TO the winters depths, and the
other We cast aside, that it may not
contaminate as it rots.
1t is a sad, sweet task-sweet for
the counted gains, sad for the oppor-
tunities lost and to come no more.
And as we garner the gains we also
garner wisdom.
As we separate the wheat from the
chaff and the sound fruit FROM the
Windfalls, so, whether we will or not.
we must in the inner consciousness
separate the true from the false in
principles of labor and living.
No man, wen of threc-Srorp-avn,
fonr-score and ten, has ever known
this law to fail in Il single season. II
knows no variation in all the cycles of
time.
But grains and fruits are not all
that we are %garnering. Chatf and
weeds are not all we ought to sepa-
rate and cast away. There are things
more important still. In the store
house Of the heart and mind and soul,
: it not we'll to seek, just rs care
fully, though sometimes in vain, to
keep only the better. the brighter, the
more enduring things?
When the bleak November of life
comrS We shall have need of them.
Dreary will he the winter to him
whose granaries are empty. But
drearier and more dcSolltr S,ill must
be the winter of Old axe "a the man
or woman whose mind and heart and
soul have brought from the harvest
only the joys that are cllaff and the
virtues that are mere windfallS. at
tanned and adhered TO only through
easy convenience.
When that winter comes, as It must
TO many of us, we shall have only our
selves TO turn to, and we shall find
only that which we have sown and
harvested in the bright spring and
golden SUMMERTIME good grain. the
sound fruit, the flowers. the high i'm
pulses. The sacrifices, the loves, YES.
and the cheat, the chaff, the weeds, the
windfalls, the hates, the i~ealousies,
the low n~asSions-all these and nothing
more, TO sustain us or to render us
d~eSolate.
We may, If we will, make each dav
a cycle of all the seasons. We sow
each morning and reap each noon and
garner each evening the fruits of our
living in this little day. Day by day,
II we strive on in right and hope and
courage, must our knowledge and u
strength, and our store increase. Day
by day, through many failings and
Iaillngs, do we come nearer to the
true manhood and the true oma
hood.-Charles Grant Miller In the
Christian Herald.