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"Amen!" I said to the beautiful myth;

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Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well:
Each good thought is a drop wherewith
To cool and lessen the fires of hell.

"Prayers of love like rain-drops fall,
Tears of pity are cooling dew,

And dear to the heart of our Lord are all

Who suffer, like Him, in the good they do!"

J. G. Whittier.

WHAT THE VOICE SAID.

"First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."— Matt. vii. 5.

MADDENED by earth's

wrong

and evil,

"Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,

"From thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
Shake the bolted fire!

"Love is lost, and faith is dying;
With the brute the man is sold;
And the dropping blood of labour
Hardens into gold.

"Here the dying wail of famine,
There the battle's groan of pain ;
And, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon
Reaping men like grain.

"Where is God, that we should fear Him?'
Thus the earth-born Titans say;
'God! if Thou art living, hear us!'
Thus the weak ones pray."

"Thou the patient Heaven upbraiding,"
Spake a solemn Voice within;
"Weary of our Lord's forbearance,
Art thou free from sin?

"Fearless brow to Him uplitting,
Canst thou for his thunders call,
Knowing that to guilt's attraction
Evermore they fall?

"Know'st thou not all germs of evil
In thy heart await their time?
Not thyself, but God's restraining,
Stays their growth of crime.

"Could'st thou boast, O child of weakness!
O'er the sons of wrong and strife,
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life?

"Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing
From one fountain, clear and free,
But by widely varying channels
Searching for the sea.

"Glideth one through greenest valleys,
Kissing them with lips still sweet;
One, mad roaring down the mountains,
Stagnates at their feet.

"Is it choice whereby the Parsee
Kneels before his mother's fire?
In his black tent did the Tartar
Choose his wandering sire?

"He alone, whose hand is bounding
Human power and human will,
Looking through each soul's surrounding,
Knows its good or ill.

"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow Make to thee their strong appeal, Coward wert thou not to utter

What the heart must feel.

"Earnest words must needs be spoken When the warm heart bleeds or burns

With its scorn of wrong or pity
For the wronged by turns.

"But by all thy nature's weakness
Hidden faults and follies known,
Be thou, in rebuking evil,

Conscious of thine own.

"Not the less shall stern-eyed duty
To thy lips her trumpet set,
But with harsher blasts shall mingle
Wailings of regret."

Cease not, Voice of holy speaking,
Teacher sent of God, be near,
Whispering through the day's cool silence,
Let my spirit hear!

So, when thoughts of evil-doers
Waken scorn, or hatred move,
Shall a mournful fellow-feeling
Temper all with love.

J. G. Whittier.

THE REWARD.

"He said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father."-Luke ix. 59.

WHO, looking backward from his manhood's prime,
Sees not the spectre of his misspent time?
And, through the shade

Of funeral cypress planted thick behind,
Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind
From his loved dead?

Who bears no trace of passion's evil force?
Who shuns thy sting, O terrible remorse ?--
Who does not cast

On the thronged pages of his memory's book,
At times, a sad and half-reluctant look,

Regretful of the past?

Alas!-the evil which we fain would shun
We do, and leave the wished-for good undone :
Our strength to-day

Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall:
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all
Are we alway.

Yet, who, thus looking backward o'er his years,
Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,
If he hath been

Permitted, weak and sinful as he was,
To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,
His fellow-men?

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in
ray of sunshine to the cell of sin,—

A

If he hath lent

Strength to the weak, and in an hour of need,
Over the suffering, mindless of his creed
Or home, hath bent,

He has not lived in vain, and while he gives
The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,
With thankful heart;

He gazes backward, and with hope before,
Knowing that from his works he nevermore
Can henceforth part.

J. G. Whittier.

TRUE WISDOM.

"To know thee, the only true God."-John xvii. 3.

MYSTERIOUS deeps of wisdom, dimly known,

Where fathom of man's thought ne'er touched the ground,
Who shall thy lessons reach, who shall descry
His steps of light, who in His boundless word
The wilderness of waters walks unseen?

;

In this thy visible house, mankind's abode,
Thy hand withdraws from search of human ken
Whene'er the depths we trace, there opes beyond
An inner world, where science lifts her torch,
And wonder leads through dim enchanted halls,
And glorious links we see of heavenly mould,
But cannot track the chain; thyself, unseen,
Sittest behind the mighty wheel of things,
Which move harmonious, though unheard,
Save when thine ordered ways, at intervals,
Break forth, as falling on some traveller's ear,
Musical notes, which make the landscape smile.
The hand that kindles up the rolling moon,
Lights up the worm's blue lamp beside our path;
And haply in thy word there hidden lies
Infinity, coiled up in narrowest bound;
We on the surface walk, and know it not.

The bird that sits and sings upon the thorn,
Knows not its Maker's wonders, known to man:
Man moves 'mid hidden things, to angels known,
Nor knows of aught around, above, beneath,
Where'er he turns, beside the path of life,
Enough on earth to know.

Oh send thou forth Thy light and truth from thine unseen abodes, That they may lead me to thy holy hill. Thou that hast made the heart and seeing eye, Give me to know thyself: of all things else Let me be ignorant deemed, for thee to know Is to know all that's good and fair below ;Without thee we are blind, but in thee see Thy multitude of mercy far and wide,Thee good in all, and all things good in thee; Thee only none can seek and seek in vain : Thus travelling thro' the world's lone desert way,* If, with that Ethiop stranger, o'er thy word

I bend, thy heaven-sent guide is at my side."

Rev. Isaac Williams.

*Acts viii. 26.

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