modified their tones and the insects seemed to

stop and listen. The intermittent clang of cow

bells in the home nooks of the farms told that feeding-time was over and that milking-time had come. The dull hum of a threshing-machine came from the distance, speaking of an over-prolonged day to tired workers. On the farther hill, out against the radiant sky, stood as if self-poised in air the fairy disks of a windmill, like a diamond creating more light in itself. But its vans were quiet; even the windmill stood still. Only an occasional woman's call or child's cry broke the stillness, for the hum of the machine and the irregular tinkle of the bells seemed a part of the silence. The grating of our wagon wheels was intrusive, and we stopped to let the darkness steal over us with its revealing benedictions, bringing as it did the stars like lanterns in its hand.

While we stopped, a church bell, the Catholic angelus, sent its tones down from one of the mimic mountain tops at the far end of the valley. It was one of those rich, noble bells which the Catholic church knows where to put and how to use in far-off country nooks, a bell that emphasizes the quiet of quiet places. This bell pealed its message out in rhythmic waves over fields,

down the road, and up the lanes until it filled the valley. It was a message which the listener must interpret for himself. We knew too much of the life of that neighborhood, we had studied too closely the revealments of the sunlight to believe that we stood in any ideal valley, such as Rasselas sought or poets have sung. We knew that this was no dream Arcadia. The horizonlines, so strongly yet delicately moulded, rimmed, as we knew, homes that were meagre and hearts that were barren. Those farm-houses sheltered sordid men, unhappy and overworked women. There were doubtless poorly tilled fields and sadly neglected minds in that valley. The morrow would bring hard tasks to reluctant hands, and would hear foul phrases and angry words from human lips in that neighborhood, but over all would stand in the to-morrow as in that twilight, the cross-crowned church. And three times the next day, and every day in the year, would that bell ring out its call to prayer, a call which would oftentimes fall upon ears reluctant and stupid, but it would still be a summons to the higher life. It would speak of the permanent, of the right, of the immortal hope, of the blessed dead, of God.

I do not forget that to many ears in the valley

that bell is only the Catholic bell, a bell of superstition, despised, perhaps dreaded; but back of all that is doctrinal, sectarian, or provincial, it is still the bell of religion, the voice of the ideal, pleading with men to look up, to look ahead, to look around, aye, to look down when need be, and find everywhere the revealing God, the increasing sanctity of being, and the besetting glory of life. Hung far out there in country space, it was as much a part of the valley as the scarred bluff and the murmuring brook. That bell belonged there that night as much as the opalescent sky, for it echoed somehow the voice that called the hills into being, the voice that will speak when the brook is dry. It was the voice of nature vocalizing itself in the lives and dreams of men. It was the voice of God phrasing itself in the aspirations of the race. It was the spirit of the universe climbing through atom and cell, up through flower and tree, through beast and bird, into the heart of woman and the hand of man, embodying itself on its upward way in its highest attainment yet on earth, the prophet's dream, the martyr's faith. The crudest, narrowest sectarian conventicle to be found in Wisconsin fronts toward the everlasting. It belongs to

nature and to nature's God. It is not only a part, but the highest part of the landscape in which it is set.

"For out of Thought's interior sphere

These wonders rose to upper

air ;

And Nature gladly gave them place,

Adopted them into her race,

And granted them an equal date

With Andes and with Ararat."

I hope this parable of the bell has not led us so far afield that we cannot return to the parable of the river. The bell does not conflict, but reënforces the river lesson. May I not bring the analogies of the river still nearer home? Every individual life is a river rippling and gleaming like the trout-brook of childhood. The stream quiets as the movement broadens. In middle life it is laden with accumulated cares, burdened with other people's thoughts, the experiences and responsibilities of the world. How turbid are its waters at times, how unlike the spring purity of childhood, how unfit for the serenity and placidity of the ocean toward which it is tending. And still, not childhood but age is the more noble. Not at birth, but at maturity, are we most fit for companionship with angels. Then

are we nearest to God. Truly, Lowell is justified
by the analogies of the river when he says:-
"Not only around our infancy

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.
"Over our manhood bend the skies

;

Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies ;
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite,

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea."

I apologize for none of the lapses of life. I excuse no complacency and recognize no grace in coarseness or selfishness. But I ask for respect for every living thing and plead for the sanctity of life in its essence, wherever or however found. The sun shines above you and its rays reach the waters of your life. You are a part of the wondrous stream of being, and your reflection and shadow enter into a landscape more charming than any combinations of river and valley, field and hillslope, wild wood and cultivated garden can produce.

But here I must break with my analogies and free myself from the tyranny of the fig