GOD is the author of all our blessings. There is no truth, perhaps,to which we are more ready to give our assent than this; and yet, agreat many people seem to act as if they did not believe it, or, atleast, as if they were prone to forget it.
A traveller stopped at a fountain, and, letting the rein he held inhis hand fall upon the neck of his horse, permitted the thirstyanimal to drink of the cooling water that came pouring down from arocky hill, and spread itself out in a basin below. While the wearybeast refreshed himself, the traveller looked at the bright streamthat sparkled in the sunlight, and said thus to himself:--
"What a blessing is water! How it refreshes, strengthens, andpurifies! And how bountifully it is given! Everywhere flows thisgood gift of our Heavenly Father, and it is as free as the air toman and beast."
While he thus mused, a child came to the fountain. She had a vesselin her hand, and she stooped to fill it with water.
"Give me a drink, my good little girl," said the traveller.
And, with a smiling face, the child reached her pitcher to the manwho still sat on his horse.
"Who made this water?" said the traveller, as he handed the vesselback to the child.
"God made it," was her quick reply.
"And do you know anything that water is like?" asked the traveller.
"Oh, yes! Father says that water is like truth."
"Does he?"
"Yes, sir. He says that water is like truth, because truth purifiesthe mind as water does the body."
"That is wisely said," returned the traveller. "And truth quenchesour thirst for knowledge, as water quenches the thirst of our lips."
The little girl smiled as this was said, and, taking up her pitcher,went back to her home.
"Yes, water represents truth," said the traveller, as he rodethoughtfully away. "The child was right. It purifies and refreshesus, and is spread out, like truth, on every hand, free for those whowill take it. Whenever I look upon water again, I will think of itas representing truth; and then I will remember that it is asimportant to the mind's health and purity to have truth as it is forthe body to have water."
Thus, from a simple fountain, as it leaped out from the side of ahill, the traveller gained a lesson of wisdom. And so, as we passthrough the world, we may find in almost every natural object thatexists something that will turn our minds to higher and betterthoughts. Every tree and flower, every green thing that grows, andevery beast of the field and bird of the air, have in them asignification, if we could but learn it. They speak to us in aspiritual language, and figure forth to our natural senses thehigher, more beautiful, and more enduring things of the mind.
THE END.
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