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Is it not wonderful to call to mind how, centuries ago, when white-robed Druids cut mistletoe from British oaks, the robin redbreast hopped around, and sang; when, earlier still, men were wild and savage, dwelling in holes and caves and huts of mud, when churches and cloisters were unknown in this land and the one true God undreamed of, robins mated and made their nests, the speckled thrushes sang, 'Do it now--Do it now,' as they sought food for their young, the blackbirds whistled, and the swallows flashed by on joyous wing.

Aye, and when Eve and Adam walked in Eden, amid strange beasts and gaily plumaged birds, here--in these Isles--the robin redbreast sang, and all our British birds busily built their nests and reared their young; living their little joyous lives, as He Who made them taught them how to do.
"And, in the centuries to come, when all things may be changed in this our land, when we shall long have gone to dust, when our loved cloisters may have crumbled into ruin; still the hills of Malvern will stand, and the silvery Severn flow along the valley; while here, in this very garden--if it be a garden still--the robin will build his nest, and carol his happy song.
"Mark you this, dear Mary Antony: all things made by man hold within them the elements of change and of decay.

But nature is at one with God, and therefore immutable.