Part 3

So coming, coming, coming still From heaven, what daily blessings fill Life’s chalice with full many a joy, Which Time’s cold hand can not destroy; So pure, so holy at their birth, They sweetly charm the ills of earth.

Upon my heart, when lone and still, As freely may pure gifts distill, Awakening strains of sweetest peace, Whose melody shall never cease, Till, far beyond the reach of time, They swell heaven’s harmony sublime.

Drown.

To a Snow-Flake.

Thou rain-drop, snow-crystalled, most fragile and fair! Borne from the far cloud-land and fashioned in air,

What measures befit thee? Some song of the spheres Should chant out thy praise, with the swift-rolling years.

Like a gem cast in setting from heaven’s bright floor, Thou art pure, and all perfect, like the One we adore.

Three stars make thy glory,—the mystical sign Of the Three named in heaven,—One Spirit Divine!

I behold thee afar, lest a warm human touch, And the breath of my singing, with praise over-much,

Should make thee to perish, thy grace disappear, And thy soft beauty vanish, dissolved in a tear.

Like thee I have come from a realm far away, And like thee I shall live but a brief mortal day.

Like thee I shall find neither haven nor rest, And descend like thee, once, to the Earth’s frozen breast;

But thou shalt move onward, completing God’s will Through the courses of Nature, thy round to fulfill;

A drop in the river—a flake mid the snows— A gleam in the rainbow—the dew on the rose.

Then go, little snow-flake! I prize thee not less, That our paths must divide, and I onward must press;

For I must mount upward yet higher and higher, Nevermore to descend with heart-baffled desire;

For the light of God’s Being is kindled in mine, And my soul in his presence for ever must shine,

Where the purest snow-crystal looks tarnished and dim, By the white jasper walls; where the saints’ choral hymn

Floats up day and night through the fair golden street, God’s praise on their lips, and their crowns at his feet,

Exchanging Earth’s crosses, the frost and the blight, The snows of the valley, and mists of the night,

The brightest earth-blossoms, all the world can afford, For Sharon’s red rose, and the smile of the Lord.

S. D. C.

PERFECTION.

Praise the Lord, Snow and Vapors, fulfilling his word.—Psalm 148:8.

A striking characteristic of the snow-crystal is its perfection of form. Whatever be the type of its structure, that type is completed with the utmost regularity and nicety. Every angle is of the prescribed size,—not a degree more or less. The number of parts is uniform. You will never see a star with five rays, nor seven. With a precision which art would strive in vain to excel, the pattern is carried out in detail with the most exact symmetry, and in the most nicely-adjusted proportions.

It is so in every snow-crystal, unless broken or otherwise injured. God has no show specimens in his cabinets, elaborately finished, while the mass of them are left imperfect. There are no obscure corners, no back apartments, where the half-formed, ill-shapen, abortive portions of his work are gathered, out of sight. The tiniest speck that is lost in the countless multitudes that robe the earth is as perfect as if the skill of the Creator had been expended upon this alone. The flake that falls in the vast polar solitudes, where no eye of man will ever see it, or that plunges to instant death in the ocean, is wrought with as much care and fidelity as if it were to sparkle in a regal crown.

If there be apparent exceptions to this general statement, they are only apparent, and even these confirm the fact. In ordinary storms, large portions of the flakes are broken, sometimes reduced almost to shapeless dust. Often the flakes, coming in contact with each other, adhere, and constitute masses which are very irregular. Sometimes, however, this union gives rise to regular forms, as twelve-pointed stars, which are believed to be two hexagons, the one of them overlapping the other. (Page 11, fig. 22, 23.) A few cases have been observed where a ray or point of a star has become the germinating center of a twin or parasitic star, forming together a structure anomalous as a whole, though regular in each of its individual parts. (Page 99, fig. 2.)

This universal perfection of figure results from the constancy and uniformity of the laws which govern the process of crystallization. But it is not too much to go beyond these, and behold a Divine mind which loves beauty for its own sake, and delights to sow it broadcast throughout creation. Though there be no human eye to behold and to admire, they will not therefore be unbeheld. It is not true that