“I have a little farm out here on the hills. It has helped me to understand the world I live in and especially these boys. How often I have seen the winds of autumn strip the grove and garden of their loveliness until nothing was left but dead stalks and bare branches. The captains and the kings had departed. I have seen them returning—the delicate green of the new leaves in spring, the grass, the violets, and here are the familiar sprouts of the poison ivy. I thought that I had tom the last of it out of the ground last summer, but here it is.
“Everything passes away but it returns, and the noxious ivy is the most persistent returner of all. I am busy fighting it every spring and summer.
“So it is with this world of men. Caesar dies, despotism is uprooted, as we thought, and we discover that they have returned and are busy growing and spreading their roots. Everything returns if you give it a chance. Herod has returned and is slaying the male children. Pilate has returned and is sitting in judgment.
“Do you tell me that Jesus Christ will return? Nay, I tell you He has already returned. He is in the camps and on the battle-fields of France and Belgium. He is in the hearts of the young men who are dying as He died to make men free.
“So, my young soldier lads of Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States, I take off my hat and bare my gray head when you march by me, for I know why you are so brave.”
It was near midnight when the country lawyer and I left his office and headed up the main street of the village toward his home. After a moment of silence we reached the public square and then he directed my eyes toward the glowing lamp of Jupiter in the sky.
“When you get to wondering at God's neglect of His duty, it's a good idea to go out and take a look at the stars riding up there in the sunlight,” he said. “I guess this little world of ours has got to take care of itself. Kind o' looks to me as if God had enough of His own work to do, especially when so many of us are loafing. I don't see how we can complain if we do have to 'tend to our own business. We've been depending a long time on prayer an' indolence an' good luck while we let the weeds grow in the garden. I rather guess we'll have to do our own hoein'. Every man to his hoe! And let's take care that the weeds don't get too far ahead of us again.