By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

      "For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction" (Gen. 41:52).

      The summer showers are falling. The poet stands by the window watching them. They are beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce downpour. But the poet sees in his imaginings more than the showers which are falling before his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers which shall be soon breaking forth from the watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty and fragrance. And so he sings:

      "It isn't raining rain for me, it's raining daffodils;
      In every dimpling drop I see wild flowers upon the hills.
      A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;
      It isn't raining rain for me: it's raining roses down."

      Perchance some one of God's chastened children is even now saying, "O God, it is raining hard for me tonight.

      "Testings are raining upon me which seem beyond my power to endure. Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter defeat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are raining into my life which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days."

      Withal, friend, you are mistaken. It isn't raining rain for you. It's raining blessing. For, if you will but believe your Father's Word, under that beating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life of yours.

      You indeed see the rain. But do you see also the flowers? You are pained by the testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials.

      You shrink from the suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul.

      Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.

      It isn't raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease was never able to beget in your innermost soul. --J. M. McC.

      SONGS ACROSS THE STORM

      "A harp stood in the moveless air,
      Where showers of sunshine washed a thousand fragrant blooms;
      A traveler bowed with loads of care
      Essayed from morning till the dusk of evening glooms
      To thrum sweet sounds from the songless strings;
      The pilgrim strives in vain with each unanswering chord,
      Until the tempest's thunder sings,
      And, moving on the storm, the fingers of the Lord
      A wondrous melody awakes;
      And though the battling winds their soldier deeds perform,
      Their trumpet-sound brave music makes
      While God's assuring voice sings love across the storm"