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��REMINISCENCES.
��left their homes, and their labors and their nets, and followed their Master to become teachers and fishers of men, gathered inspiration from the blue waves of " Gennesaret," from the breezes which came down from Hermon and the far hills of the Gadarenes ; from the stars that hung above the forests of Lebanon ; from the ripplings of Siloam's shady rill, and from the wild dashings of the swift waters of the Jordan?
Who doubts that the characters of this chosen few were modified by the influen- ces of the romantic country around them ; that their souls were full of the love of nature, and so of love for their fellows?
When you see men steeled against their gentler emotions, who sneer at aught of love or affection; who see nothing of beauty and little to charm in the exter- nal world of mountain and forest, in the glow of sunset, or in the starry watchers above; who hear no music among the swaying branches of the oak or the pine, no laugh in the rivulet, or melody of winds or of waves ; whose ears are open to no sound but the clink of gold, and who know no love but the love of gain ; there you will find a chilled heart and a cold and selfish nature. Judas betrayed his master.
But my pen is leading me into a homi- ly. I was going to tell you there was a quaintly defined footpath entering the shadows at the north side of the " birch knoll," zig-zagging down the long hill into the darker valley below. It was an ancient " deer-run " ere the hunter and the fisherman had sought out these hid- den retreats, startling the forest echoes with the crack of the rifle, and whipping from the stony, moss-bound brook its fishy inhabitants.
Many a time, in these later years, do I recall the odd figure of " Old Ezra," emerging from those mysterious solitudes with strings of golden trout; or the quaint form of " Horatio," stalking across the fields, and suddenly disappear- ing in the forest dark with shadows, closely followed by his faithful hound, whose loud baying, full, clear and rich as a bugle note, when following the game, was well known through all that mountain land.
��It was profoundly still among those dim arches as we entered the wood through the vanguard of a rising genera- tion of aspiring young birches and som- bre-clad beeches, and wound our way towards that musical murmur which we knew was the mountain stream babbling down yonder in the glen.
Here was solitude as perfect and sweet as the most romantic heart could wish ; the solitude of the world-old forest. The spirit of silence and repose seemed to have taken possession of "hoary hill and haunted hollow." The crackling of a dry twig, or the suppressed rustling of our feet among the mosses, or last au- tumn's dry leaves, seemed a rude inva- sion of this domain of quiet ; and there came a sound as of a decayed branch fall- ing to the ground from some huge trunk far away upon the hillside ; and again a wild partridge hen, disturbed upon her leaf-hidden nest, flew from our pathway and fluttered away through the copse- wood, arousing from his dreamy nap a chatty red squirrel, who gazed with sparkling eyes au instant, then whisked away with a chitter-r-r into his nut-tree retreat, in safety to look upon this in- truder.
There were no whisperings among the maples, no breezy stir of the birchen bougs or the linden trees ; no soughing of the winds above in the lofty pines or drowsy hemlocks, but a deep, soul-sooth- ing tranquility brooded over all. It was calm as a dream of Heaven ; only the low, lulling voice of the water in the dis- tant dell, and that became more a thought and less a sound.
We were near the foot of the hill, far away yet from the river's brink, lving prone upon a huge rock, upholstered and draped with moss as long as the beard of a Druid. We were watching the shim- mer of the sunlight among the leafy shad- ows, when there came floating up the valley and through the forest from the little village miles away, with a richness and sweetness which I cannot well de- scribe, the sound of the church-going bell. How it thrilled through those dim, silent halls ! How it filled my soul with ardent longings, with holy inspirations ; and when its notes died away upon the
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