OVER the ice-locked earth the balmy breath of spring has sent its insistent message, and with all but imperceptible stir the wonder of growth in response to the ceaseless divine summoning again begins its renewed manifestation before our eyes. Once more is enacted the entrancing drama of the progress of the year through its successive scenes of birth, awakening, growth, maturity, decay, until at length the curtain falls upon its close.
To one for whom this unfoldment means only the passage of time, must often come a pang of regret that the innocence of the dawning year, its gentle awakening to vernal beauty, its rapid maturity into the unchallenged sovereignty of summer, its defiant rioting in the glorious tints of autumn, its helpless yielding to the smothering clasp of winter's snowy arms, must repeat the hapless tale of each recurrent year, and for such a one is the deeper lesson of the year unheeded and unguessed.
But "the time for thinkers has come" (Science and Health, Pref., p. vii), and to the thinker is unfolded a wondrous message, to which each year, each day and hour, yields its significant quota. To his eager gaze appears no monotony in the days while the earth lies asleep beneath its snowy coverlet. In anticipation he has already heard the voiceless call of the "vernal maid," he has already sensed the faint response from the drowsy earth that hints of full awakening, and for him the air is already musical with the notes of twittering birds, fragrant with the scent of the springing grasses, and redolent with the perfume of the shy blossoms that star the hidden nooks. Though the sky be gray above him, though snow laden winds buffet him, though his feet still tread the icy ways of winter, in his heart is naught but spring, and with the ever-present reality of this vision the passage of time is to him an unheralded flitting.
