Living stars to view be brought,
In the boundless realms of thought;
High and infinite desires,
Flaming like those upper fires!

Holy Truth, eternal Right,·
Let them break upon my sight;
Let them shine serene and still,
And with light my being fill.

THE INFINITY OF SPACE.

JOHN STERLING.

WHEN up to nightly skies we gaze,
Where stars pursue their endless ways,
We think we see from earth's low clod
The wide and shining home of God.

But could we rise to moon or sun,
Or path where planets duly run,
Still heaven would spread above us far,
And earth remote would seem a star.

"T is vain to dream those tracts of space With all their worlds approach His face; One glory fills each wheeling ball,

One love has shaped and moved them all.

THE INFINITY OF SPACE.

This earth, with all its dust and tears,
Is His no less than yonder spheres ;
And rain-drops weak, and grains of sand
Are stamped by His immediate hand.

The rock, the wave, the little flower,
All fed by streams of living power,
That spring from one Almighty will,
Whate'er His thought conceives, fulfil.

And is this all that man can claim ?
Is this our longing's final aim?
To be like all things round, -no more
Than pebbles cast on Time's gray shore?

Can man, no more than beast, aspire
To know his being's awful Sire?
And, born and lost on Nature's breast,
No blessing seek but there to rest?

Not this our doom, thou God benign!
Whose rays on us unclouded shine:
Thy breath sustains yon fiery dome;
But man is most thy favored home.

We view those halls of painted air,
And own Thy presence makes them fair;
But dearer still to thee, O Lord!

Is he whose thoughts to thine accord.

27

MELODIES AND MYSTERIES.

CHARLES MACKAY.

WOULDST thou know what the blithe bird pipeth

High in the morning air?

Wouldst thou know what the blithe stream singeth,

Rippling o'er pebbles bare?

Sorrow the mystery shall teach thee
And the words declare.

Wouldst thou find in the rose's blossom
More than thy fellows find?
More in the fragrance of the lily

Than odor on the wind?

Love Nature, and her smallest atoms
Shall whisper to thy mind.

Wouldst thou know what the moon discourseth To the docile sea?

Wouldst hear the echoes of the music

Of the far infinity!

Sorrow shall ope the founts of knowledge,
And heaven shall sing to thee.

Wouldst thou see through the riddle of Being
Further than others can?

CORRESPONDENCES.

29

Sorrow shall give thine eyes new lustre
To simplify the plan;

And love of God and thy kind shall aid thee
To end what it began.

To Love and Sorrow all Nature speaketh;
If the riddle be read,

They the best can see through darkness
Each divergent tread

Of its mazy texture, and discover
Whence the ravel spread.

Love and Sorrow are sympathetic
With the earth and skies;

Their touch from the harp of Nature bringeth
The hidden melodies;

To them the eternal chords for ever
Vibrate in harmonies.

CORRESPONDENCES.

C. P. CRANCH.

ALL things in Nature are beautiful types to the soul that will read them ;

Nothing exists upon earth, but for unspeakable ends.

Every object that speaks to the senses was meant

for the spirit:

Nature is but a scroll,

thereon.

God's handwriting

Ages ago, when man was pure, ere the flood overwhelmed him,

While in the image of God every soul yet

lived,

Everything stood as a letter or word of a language familiar,

Telling of truths which now only the angels can read.

Lost to man was the key of those sacred hiero

glyphics,

Stolen away by sin, till with Jesus restored. Now with infinite pains we here and there spell out a letter;

Now and then will the sense feebly shine through the dark.

When we perceive the light which breaks through the visible symbol,

What exultation is ours! we the discovery have

made!

Yet is the meaning the same as when Adam lived sinless in Eden,

Only long-hidden it slept, and now again is restored.

Man unconsciously uses figures of speech every moment,