Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1884 — The Present and the Past. [ARTICLE]

The Present and the Past.

The present of public and private good has its roots in the past. The roots in, the vegetable kingdom elaborate below ground material and quality of growth. Stem and branches above do not miss this preparation. If they miss it they die. It appears in everenlarging widtn and beauty. The little stream, tile great river, is at every point receptive of the waters flowing down from the slopes above. To stop and stagnate is not allowed by the cast of nature and an unseen intelligence. Mother birds sing to their children with all the melody of Which they are capable; the children hear and give out the same sweetness in grove and door-yard, house-top and forest, to the farthest years. The mind in its ceaseless activity may think out new systems after which the universe and all existence subsist. In that way old systems may go out of fashion, as it regards the building of this universal manse and its tenantry. But an active interest in the welfare of the race never goes out of fashion. Is the pa&t far away from tho present, the branches far away from the roots, the head from feet, the river in its depth from its hillside fountains ? But the. former cannot do without the latter. For very life the connection is clung to. Along with contemporaneous instincts and the discriminations of good sense let the present draw from the sources of antiquity.— Rev. W. M. Bicknell.