that were yet to be. I have heard people deplore the fact that human nature is so prone to anticipate events; I have been told that the reason animals live such a placid, contented life, is because they only concentrate on the present. It may be so; but personally, I wouldn’t be without my anticipations, even though it may mean a loss of placidity.

[51]

The commandment is to take no anxious thought for the morrow; there is nothing said against looking ahead for happiness.

And a wander among our hills and along our lanes on a mild February day, means that in addition to the loveliness of early spring, you sense the beauty of summer—and much more besides.

Every soft, grey-green shoot on the tangled honeysuckle stems sets you thinking of the yellow, rosy-tinged blossoms that will fill the long summer evenings with fragrance; every crimson thorn and bursting leaf on the wild rose, tells of far-flung branches that will arch the hedges and flush them with pale-pink flowers later on; the rosettes of foxglove leaves on the roadside banks remind you of the bells that will be ringing all along the lanes when summer sets in.

And although the fresh green of all the courageous little things that have braved the winds and peeped forth, is exquisite enough in itself to satisfy that eternal craving of the human heart for something fresh from the Hand of God, yet the promise that each proclaims carries one into further realms of loveliness, and conjures up visions that can never be put down in black and white.

One dimly understands how impossible was the task St. John set himself when he tried to describe the glimpse that was permitted him of[52] the City not made with hands. He wrote of gold, and pearls, and crystal, and inexhaustible gems&mdas