Life at the monastery is new life; it is morning there--it is indeed
only a little after the dawn. The day is as yet cool and sweet, and it
gives many promises. We can see what the morning is like if we will
journey thither.
III
I
THE BOY WHO NEVER GROWS OLD
Up to Christmas we are walking with the kings to the Babe's cradle,
to the birth of new life and new hope. High in the heavens, and yet
before us over the hard frost-bitten way, gleams the guiding star
whose promise we divine. After Christmas we are walking with the
spring, with a new, young, whispering child-life in the old heart.
Though the winds be cold and snow sweep over the land, we know that
winter and death are spent. Whilst the light grows stronger in the
sky, something in us that is wooed by light responds. New eyes open
in the soul. Spring comes, and then the tramp is marching with the
summer. Down come the floods, and often for hours one takes shelter
from the rain, and it seems as if all we hope for were being
inundated. But, as I wrote before, "the spring is not advanced by
rain, but it gathers strength in the rain to proceed more quickly when
the sun comes out: so also with the tramp." Summer is the year itself,
all that the other seasons have laboured for. It is the glory of the
year.
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