FEBRUARY.
223
LITERARY.
FEBRUARY.
- SELECTED.
Now, who would guess, in this wild dull sleet. That blossoms were waking under our feet? Or who would dream, in such storms as these. That life was astir in the heart of the trees?
Would any one think, do you suppose,
Those brown stocks would ever produce a rose-
Blown and fretted, tossed to and fro,
Crusted with ice, and whitened by snow?
Blank and bare is the meadow side; Dreary the woods, the distance wide: Yet the looms of God, unheard, unseen Are weaving their draperies of green.
The tender Mayflower waits His command. The violet purple he holds in His hand. Thousands of servants are working His will In the underground space vast and still.
Fiercer and louder the wild winds blow:
But we who are in the secret know
That short is the time of their savage power...
The sun comes nearer hour by hour.
And what of the heart that is beaten and tossed.
Chilled by sorrow till hope is lost;
Can there be life in the frozen earth,
And for human heart no summer birth?
Is there a sun for the elm and rose.
Shining and winning till life overflows.
While the soul lies desolate, waiting in rain.
With no power in the heaven to loosen ita chain.
A CONFLICT.
A conflict of studies is no new thing in the history of higher education. It is no new thing to hear science lauded to the skies, and the classics consigned to the dead. It is no new thing to hear men say that every branch of knowledge that does
not lead directly into the paths of the useful, must be condemned as so much worthless matter. Every intelligent man must acknowledge that in considering the claims that are made by the leaders of the various modes of education and systems of study,