Lettuces, radishes, and such like garden crops, are soon out of the ground and ready for the table, a month almost suffices to perfect them; but an oak requires long centuries to come to the fulness of its growth. Those graces which are most precious and durable will cost us longest to produce; those good things which spring up hastily may have some transient worth about them, but we cannot look for permanence and value in them. There is no need to deplore the slowness of our spiritual growth, if that which comes of it be of a solid character.