It is a period full of brightness and expectancy, but at the same time requiring the utmost vigilance and watchfulness. It is a period when vegetation germinates; when the good seed gives promise of an abundant harvest. But it is a period when the enemy is most industrious in sowing evil seeds; and when, in consequence, poisonous plants are likely to spring up with the good, at the same time putting on so much the appearance of good, as to receive those who are not in a constant state of watchfulness.
How active is the husbandman in the spring! how watchful over his tender plants! how diligent in nourishing, strengthening, and keeping them free from weeds! As is the labour of the natural husbandman, as is his activity, diligence, and watchfulness, so must be that of the spiritual husbandman: for upon the care and culture bestowed upon his plants in the spring-time of their existence, depends the reward of an abundant harvest in the autumn. The labour of the spring is more particularly the labour of the understanding: it is making the earth of the mind a treasure-house of the seeds of truth, in all its various degrees, under the anticipation that as the Sun—the heat of the Divine love—acquires a greater elevation in the internal horizon, its beams will fall with greater fervour upon the plants of truth, and so nourish them, as to give promise of abundant fruit.
