Courage
You have had many rectors here in St. Andrews who will continue in bloom long after the lowly ones such as I am are dead and rotten and forgotten. They are the roses in December; you remember someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December. But I do not envy the great ones. In my experience--and you may find in the end it is yours also--the people I have cared for most and who have seemed most worth caring for--my December roses--have been very simple folk. Yet I wish that for this hour I could swell into someone of importance, so as to do you credit. I suppose you had a melting for me because I was hewn out of one of your own quarries, walked similar academic groves, and have trudged the road on which you will soon set forth. I would that I could put into your hands a staff for that somewhat bloody march, for though there is much about myself that I conceal from other people, to help you I would expose every cranny of my mind. But, alas, when the hour strikes for the Rector to answer to his call he is unable to become the undergraduate he used to be, and so the only door into you is closed. We, your elders, are much more interested in you than you are in us. We are not really important to you. I have utterly forgotten the address of the Rector of my time,
As he passed the church, on his way home, the murmuring of the bells
was just ceasing. "The wind moves them--the beautiful bells," he said.
"But to-morrow you shall hear how sweet they will sing," he added,
casting a loving glance up to the tower where hung the bells.
A few miles from the valley, close to the roadside, stood a cottage
inhabited by a man and wife whose only child was fast fading from the
world.
"Raise me up a little, mother," said the dying boy, "so I can hear the
Christmas chime. It will be the last time I shall hear them here, mother.
Is it almost morning?"
The pale mother wiped the death-dew from his brow and kissed him,
saying, "Yes, dear, it's almost morning. The bells will chime soon as
the first ray comes over the hills."
Patiently the child sat, pillowed in his bed, till the golden arrows of
light flashed over the earth. Day had come, but no chime.
"What can be the matter?" said the anxious mother, as she strained her
eyes in the direction of the tower.
What if the old sexton were dead? The thought took all her strength
away. If death had taken him first, who would lay her boy tenderly away?
You have had many rectors here in St. Andrews who will continue in bloom long after the lowly ones such as I am are dead and rotten and forgotten. They are the roses in December; you remember someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December. But I do not envy the great ones. In my experience--and you may find in the end it is yours also--the people I have cared for most and who have seemed most worth caring for--my December roses--have been very simple folk. Yet I wish that for this hour I could swell into someone of importance, so as to do you credit. I suppose you had a melting for me because I was hewn out of one of your own quarries, walked similar academic groves, and have trudged the road on which you will soon set forth. I would that I could put into your hands a staff for that somewhat bloody march, for though there is much about myself that I conceal from other people, to help you I would expose every cranny of my mind. But, alas, when the hour strikes for the Rector to answer to his call he is unable to become the undergraduate he used to be, and so the only door into you is closed. We, your elders, are much more interested in you than you are in us. We are not really important to you. I have utterly forgotten the address of the Rector of my time,