[FRANKINCENSE]
[CHAPTER XXIV]
THE HIDDEN LEAVEN
Christmas-eve had come round again. The successive changes of each season had passed over Riverscourt;—the awakening of early spring, when earth threw off her pall of snow, and budding life won its annual triumph over the darkening chill of winter;—the bloom and blossom of summer, when all nature lifted up its voice and sang to the sunshine, amid fragrance of flowers and shade of soft green foliage;—the rich fulfilment of autumn, when blossom ripened into fruit, and trees turned to crimson and gold, emblem of the royal wealth of yielded harvest.
All this had come, and gone; and now, once more, earth slept 'neath leaden skies; and bare branches forked out, hopeless, over the sodden turf.
"Is this the end?" rasped the dead leaves, as the north wind swept them in unresisting herds down the avenue of beeches. "The end! The end!" wailed the north wind. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth—" Then Hope, born of Faith and Experience, cried: "But the word of our God shall stand forever! While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. This is not death, but sleep. When spring sounds the reveillé, life will stir and move again beneath the sod; all nature will respond, and there shall come once more the great awakening; the dismal sentries of darkness and of death may cease to challenge; the troops of light and life march on their way. Again the victory will be with spring."