who deals the sunbeam and the shower, and without whose smile their harvest-hope is vain.
The patience, and prudence, and simplicity of their mode of life apparently involves some preparatory discipline for the ritual of the lowly Redeemer. Every season has in itself some work or forethought for the comfort of another season, so that the year brings no period in which they can rest with pride on the agency of second causes, and forget their reliance on the Supreme. They might say with an old writer, "when the tulip fades we must shear our sheep for the winter," and when the corn ripens we select our seeds for the spring-furrow. The toils of the whole year are as a dial-plate, pointing the thoughtful mind to Him who has promised, that "summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, shall not cease."
The contentment of a life of agriculture, with moderate gains, and its freedom from the restless visions of sudden, unlaborious accumulation, are both a protection to its purity, and a positive wealth. An emphatic writer has said, "The herdsman in his clay shealing, where his very cow and dog are friends to him, not a falling stream but carries memories for him, not a mountain but nods old recognition, his life all encircled as in a blessed mother's arms,—is it poorer than the man's with ass-loads of yellow metal?"
If there are truly, as there would appear to be, tendencies in a life of agriculture to the principles and