OCR Text |
Show The Coming Spring THE coming spring this year is in perfect accord ac-cord with Easter; as the day seemed to the primitive Christians of northern Europe when they gave to the day the name of their goddess of spring and fixed the date on the anniversary anni-versary of their spring festival. Just now the transition is very beautiful in its unfoldings. It is late this year, but it is responding respond-ing to the wooing of the sun as in his return he is daily climbing higher and higher, and if we watch when one of last winter's banks of snow softens under his rays and starts valleyward, flowers appear ap-pear where the snow had been, the lawns are responding, the trees are putting out their buds, they will soon don their full garniture of green, ;ome of the migratory birds are returning, and the daily consultations among them are delicious to listen to. The principal theme is doubtless about their habitation for the summer and it is not difficult to imagine that the mother birds, while disdaining any intention to find fault or to boss things, are still feeling it to be a duty to mention a few of the things she mentioned a year ago, and how much better it would have been had her advice been heeded. The robins are in full evidence. We do not think they are migratory birds in this region. We think they go to the canyons, where the foliage is dense, and make their camp there through the first three months" of winter and then begin to make their visits to the settlements, and now they are the sauciest and jolliest visitors that come. And they do not seem disposed to treat mankind as superior beings be-ings but rather, as partners who are under obligations obliga-tions to supply them with certain luxuries as their due for coming back to make the world cheerful once more. On every hand the awakening is going on; one after another the storm tones are going out of the air; the earlier flowers are all in full bloom; the dead world is throwing off its winter winding sheet and the hills and trees seem all ready to join the voices of men in proclaiming: "The Lord is Risen." |