shade, the naked stems and branches would again send out the young
shoots of the spring, a new birth would begin everywhere, and the old
garden would dawn anew. For all his lack of sympathy with the older
forms of religious economy in the country, a thing, alas! too easy to
account for, the minister yet loved the past and felt its mystery. He
said once in a sermon--and it gave offense to more than one of his
deacons, for they scented in it _Germanism_,--"The love of the past, the
desire of the future, and the enjoyment of the present, make an
eternity, in which time is absorbed, its lapse lapses, and man partakes
of the immortality of his Maker. In each present personal being, we have
the whole past of our generation inclosed, to be re-developed with
endless difference in each individuality. Hence perhaps it comes that,
every now and then, into our consciousnesses float strange odors of
feeling, strange tones as of bygone affections, strange glimmers as of
forgotten truths, strange mental sensations of indescribable sort and
texture. Friends, I should be a terror to myself, did I not believe that
wherever my dim consciousness may come to itself, God is there."

Dorothy would have hastened the lighter repairs inside the house as
well, so as to get into it as soon as possible; but her father very
wisely argued that it would be a pity to get the house in good
condition, and then, as soon as they went into it, and began to find how
it could be altered better to suit their tastes and necessities, have to
destroy a great part of what had just been done. His plan, therefore,
was to leave the house for the winter, now it was weather-tight, and
with the first of the summer partly occupy it as it was, find out its
faults and capabilities, and have it gradually repaired and altered to
their minds and requirements. There would in this way be plenty of time
to talk about every thing, even to the merest suggestion of fancy, and
discover what they would really like.