WHETHER we grew in grace last year, or not, I hardly know, and a year is a long time out of the short season allotted to us here.
Nature has taught us, this bleak, long winter, that “March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers,” which translated into spiritual language signifies that the rough east wind of self-learning, the breaking of the branches and rotten boughs, the garden strewn with the rubbish, and the tears shed thereupon, with the Sun of righteousness shining through them, are used to clear away obstructions to the bringing forth of heavenly graces in the soul. The Master calls up sweetness where least expected. He makes the prickly, hard blackthorn gracious with white blossom in early spring, and there are trees of His planting which bloom excellently, and that, too, earlier than do many less rugged characters. But the retiring and hiding spirits, like the humble primroses, in their sheltered nooks, blossom all through the second winter, and by their lowliness escape many of the necessary blasts which so severely test the tall trees.