Yes, He is mine! and nought of earthly things, Not all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power,
The fame of heroes, or the pomp of kings. Could tempt me to forego His love an hour.
Go, worthless world, I cry, with all that's thine!
Go ! I my Saviour's am, and He is mine.
The good I have is from His stores supplied: The ill is only what He deems the best.
He for my friend, I'm rich with nought beside; And poor without Him, though of all possessed.
Changes may come — I take, or I resign.
Content, while I am His, while He is mine.^ * C. H. Spurgeon. * H. F. Lyte, Poeins Chiefly Religious, 75.
Spring-Time,
4S7
Literature.
Banks (L. A.), Bidden Wells of Comfort, 116.
Brooke (S. A.), The Fight of Faith, 324.
Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 173,
Eames (J.), The Shattered Temple, 171.
Fox (C. A.), Memorials, 282,
Greeiihough (J. G.), in God's Garden, 29.
Gurney (T, A.), The Living Lord and the Opened Grave, 176,
Spurgeon (C, H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, viii, (1862), No, 436.
Stone (G. E.), God's Hardest Task, 2.
Williams (T. R.), Addresses to Bo^js, Girls, and Young People, 98.
British Congregationalist, May 18, 1911 (R. F. Horton).
Christian World Pulpit, xi, 379 (W. Simpson) ; Ixi. 364 (A. Macrae) ;
Ixix. 347 (S. Thornton) ; Ixxvii. 252 (W. Martin). Cliurchman's Pulpit : Easter Day and Season, vii. 373 (S. J. Buchanan). Preachei-'s Magazine, iv. 274 (J, Wright) ; xvi. 180 (H. Friend).
458
Spring-Time.
For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone ;
The flowers appear on the earth ;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land ;
The fig tree ripeneth her green figs.
And the vines are in blossom.
They give forth their fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
—Song of Songs, ii. 11-13.
In Britain, spring is the most beautiful season of all the year ; but in Palestine it stands out in more strongly pronounced contrast to the three other seasons, and it is in itself exceedingly lovely. While summer and autumn are there parched with drought, barren and desolate, and while winter is often dreary with snow-storms and floods of rain, in spring the whole land is one lovely garden, ablaze with richest hues, hill and dale, wilderness and farmland vying in the luxuriance of their wild flowers, from the red anemone that fires the steep sides of the mountains to the purple and white cyclamen that nestles among the rocks at their feet. Much of the beauty of this poem is found in the fact that it is pervaded by the spirit of an Eastern spring. This makes it possible to introduce a wealth of beautiful imagery which would not have been appropriate if any other season had been chosen. Palestine is even more lovely in March than England is in May ; so that this poem, which is so completely bathed in the atmo- sphere of early spring, calls up echoes of the exquisite English garden pictures in Shelley's Sensitive Plant and Tennyson's Maud.
^ There are good men to whom the din of the streets is more welcome than the songs of birds in the spring-time. Dr. Johnson hated the quiet places of nature, and was never happy except in tlie thick of life ; Socrates had no love for green field and garden, all his interests were among men ; and even St. Paul, if we may
46o SPRING-TIME
judge from his writings, found his raptures in work done among the human throng, and was not keenly sensitive to the natural things which his Master loved. We do not envy these men in that one particular. They were great, richly endowed souls, with one sweet capacity missing. We thank God that we have it, that most good men have it in large measure. It is a gift of God with a touch of heaven in it. It makes the whole world a temple, especially in the spring-time, with stained windows and altar lights and innumerable choristers ; it makes us hear speech in a thousand languages to which other ears are deaf.^
1. " The winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth." There is a sigh of glad relief in the words, as if some long pain had gone, as if some nightmare had been lifted up, and the spirit of joy had come dancing into our lives again. The winter is long ; at least we always feel it long. It is like an unwelcome guest that prolongs its stay. It will not regulate its movements by the calendar. The day for its departure is fixed, but it tarries. It seems to go a dozen times, and comes back again. The spring-time comes with lingering feet. It has to fight with winter for every inch of ground gained. It is like the slow battle of goodness against evil, with the long-deferred result.
That weary time that comes between
The last snow and the earhest green!
One barren clod the wide fields lie.
And all our comfort is the sky.
We know the sap is in the tree, — That life at buried roots must be ; Yet dreary is the earth we tread, As if her very soul were dead.