Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/356

344 over the green valley are corresponding points of glittering gray and gold, telling where subordinate churches rule subordinate towns. Clouds that have hugged us close all day lift a little to let us drink in the beauty of the scene. They break clear away from before the face of the sun, and let him smile his parting pax vobiscum. It is a picture long to be remembered.

The fields are not all woods as you approach them. Those near us have them scattered over the plowed grounds, as elms stand in the heart of New England pastures, and maples in those of New York and Pennsylvania. The Peru or pepper tree grows to an elm and maple size and beauty in these rich spots, and sets off the fields as well as its statelier sisters. The effects of irrigation are seen in the barren and utterly worthless common, one side of the roadway, and the dark, loamy, fruitful soil on the other. It separates the sheep and the goats. Natures human so near are often as far apart in real condition: all for the want, or the possession, of grace. Not Athabesca's divide alone sends its streamlets to opposite seas and eternities; this dusty roadway is a like division between life and death. Every path of life reveals the same profound, perpetual departure, each from each, forever and forever.

The mules change their slow pull into a gallop, and go, lashed and leaping, through the streets to the plaza of the city. This northernmost of the central cities has but little in it that is attractive to a sight-seer, but much that will draw the heart of the Christian, much over which to grieve, much already over which to rejoice. It was good to meet on the hotel stairs the greeting of Rev. Mr. Thomson, the Presbyterian missionary, located here. He had been here six months, and this was the first opportunity he had had to take a brother by the hand; so our joy was mutual. Saturday was spent in that most delightful of tasks, the reading of the mail. It had followed me from Mexico, and I greeted the far-off faces of home and friends in this unexpected place. How doubly dear all such favors are when thus served up! It is possible that