Filled all her baby soul with awe,

As she sat in her little place,
And the holy look that the angels wear

Seemed pictured upon her face.
And the sweet words uttered so long ago
Came into my mind with a rhythmic flow,
"Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," said He,
And I knew that He spake of such as she.

The sweet-voiced organ pealed forth again,
The collection-box came round,
And baby dropped her penny in,

And smiled at the chinking sound.
Alone in the choir Aunt Nellie stood,
Waiting the close of the soft prelude,
To begin her solo. High and strong
She struck the first note; clear and long

She held it, and all were charmed but one,
Who, with all the might she had,
Sprang to her little feet and cried:

"Aunt Nellie, you's being bad!"
The audience smiled, the minister coughed,
The little boys in the corner laughed,
The tenor-man shook like an aspen leaf
And hid his face in his handkerchief.

And poor Aunt Nellie never could tell

How she finished that terrible strain,

But says that nothing on earth would tempt
Her to go through the scene again.
So we have decided, perhaps 'tis best,
For her sake, ours, and all the rest,
That we wait, maybe, for a year or two,
Ere our baby reënter the family pew.

LIFE.

FOR life must come and life must go!
The winters pass, the mayflowers blow
And love is here;

And tho' the bliss be but alloy,
'Tis less of pain, with more of joy,
And life is dear.

-Luaine, Part ii.

UNCERTAINTY.

O woe, whose deep abyss hath heavenly powers!
O joy, whose farthest height is keenest pain!
We start affrighted at these souls of ours,

And long to reach the common-place again.

Oh strange the possibility is given,

That we should know such bliss as makes us weep!

Is't that the soul hath caught a glimpse of Heaven, The body, writhing, fears her hold to keep? -Luaine, Part iii.

FRO

REV. JAMES UPHAM, D. D.

73

ROM John Upham, who was born in England, in 1597, and who came to New England in 1635, have proceeded all branches of the Upham family in North America.

Rev. Dr. James Upham was born January 23rd, 1815, in Salem, Mass., and his childhood was passed among its historic and literary associations.

He is endowed with the "dominent characteristics of the Upham family," which are energy, enterprise, industry, integrity, religiousness and good sense. He entered the college in Waterville, Maine, now Colby University, at the age of sixteen. After graduation, in 1835, he was appointed Preceptor of Farmington Academy, Farmington, Maine. Here, through too close application to study and teaching, his health was permanently impaired, and he was obliged to abandon all work for a time. In 1837 his health was so far restored that he was able to enter Newton Theological Institution, which, however, he left about the middle of the Senior year, subsequently studying Homiletics with Rev. John Wayland, D. D., of Salem. In 1840 he was appointed Professor of Biblical Literature and Sacred Rhetoric in the Maine Baptist Theological Institution, in Thomaston, and was ordained the same year. Following this professorship came pastorates in Manchester, N. H., and Millbury, Mass., whence he went, September, 1845, to Newhampton, N. H., as Professor in the Newhampton Literary and Theological Institution, where he took charge of New Testament Greek Interpretation, Archæology, Ecclesiastical History and Homiletics. This institution was removed to Fairfax, Vt., in 1853. While there, in 1860, the degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by his Alma Mater. In 1861 he was elected to the presidency of the institution, which he resigned in 1866 to become one of the editors of the Watchman and Reflector, now the Watchman, of Boston, Mass. This connection ended December, 1875. From 1876 to 1882 he was an associate editor of the Religious Herald, Richmond, Va. 1878 he has had charge of the Health Department in the Youth's Companion. His public life has been spent mainly in the teacher's and the editor's chair-twenty-four years in the former, and twenty-five years in the latter, which he still retains. He has always been, and continues to be, a frequent contributor to various journals. November 12th, 1841, Mr. Upham married Miss Cynthia Jane Bailey, of Providence, R. I., a woman, "filling up the high ideal in all its specialties of woman's relationship." Her death occurred September, 1865. Their children were a daughter who

Since

died, December, 1866, and five sons, one of whom died in infancy. Mrs. Experience S. (Bascom) Upham, to whom he was married, June, 1868, is a most worthy successor of his first wife. Their children were, Avie Bascom, born 1873, who died the following year, and Elizabeth Webb, born December 18th, 1875, whose young girlhood brightens the home of her parents, 14 Chestnut St. Chelsea, Mass.

Rev. Dr. Upham has been the writer of much excellent prose, and many poems which have appeared in important periodicals.

His poems are solid in thought, simple and unpretentious in form, helpful in sentiment, and are addressed mainly to the religious part of our nature. They commend themselves to the hearts of the public, but they have never been collected into a volume. J. M. R.

THE HILL-COUNTRY.

AMID these hills is felt the winter's rigor;
Here spring delays to plant her timid feet;
But here are toughened brawn and high-toned vigor;
Here simple ways and manly courage meet.

Here is the source whence life, as in a river,

Pours in rich volume and unceasing down,

A priceless boon from God, the unstinting Giver, For crowded city and the lowland town.

Hence comes the brain for all our high professions That serve our kind in church, or State, or mart, That fills the columns of the grand processionsThe élite of science, poetry and art.

O city Christians! help the churches hidden
Beneath the shadows of the far-off hill;
By gravest interests of your own you're bidden;
In them lie couched your good, or else your ill.

'Tis in the virtue of their sons and daughters That ye shall find your largest weal advanced; Their voice be as down-rush of waters,

And all the evils of your own enhanced.

I've heard a voice within me loudly crying,
It has, forsooth, my inner spirit stirred:
"Let ye those churches die, as some are dying,
And ye shall find a famine of the Word."

MY MORNING PRAYER.

I THANK thee, Father, for thy care,
Through all the helpless night,

That brought me, with my strength renewed,
To morning's gladsome light.

I thank thee for my home and friends,
And for my daily bread;
For all the comforts of my life,
Around so richly spread.

I thank thee for the love I share With others dear to me;

I thank thee for the love I feel For them, and more for thee.

I thank thee for the mercy-seat
And for thy Holy Word;
And for a heart to pray and praise,
And love and trust my Lord.

Bless, now, the labor of my hands,
And grant me good success;
Or, if sore failure be my lot,
My failure even bless.

And all the homes around me bless,
Make each a house of prayer;
From sickness, sin, and harm and death
Do thou the inmates spare.

Bless my dear pastor and the flock;
Keep all in love and peace;
And make me daily grow in grace,
And see a large increase.

Oh, bless our land, the Pilgrims' land,
Of lands the best and worst;
Thine was our fathers' helping hand,
Oh, help us, as at first.

Bless all the nations, O my God,

And let them praise, as one,
The name and character and works,
From rise to set of sun.

Accept, O God, this morning prayer, Repeated yet again,

And help me walk this day with thee, As Enoch walked. Amen.

INNER MUSIC.

THE lark that thrills us with its song,
So full of life and glee,

Seeks but to voice and send along
The inward harmony.

So souls, kept full of love and cheer,
With love and cheer o'erflow,
And make a songful heaven here,
As on to heaven they go.

THE BRUISed reed.

THO' bent to earth and almost broke By careless blow,

The tree may live and thrive again, And upward grow.

The scarr and twist may linger long To pain the eye,

Still all above shoot, straight and fair Toward the sky.

A soul cast down by wicked foe

Or thoughtless friend,

May yet regain its primal force, And heavenward tend;

Or sorely smit and struck to earth

By deadly sin,

May rise, though scarred, and still ascend From might within.

The bruised reed, tho' well nigh crushed,
God will not break;

All is not lost, despairing one,
To hope awake!

THE MORNING GLORY.

PEEPING round the world so novel, Just above the rended cloud, Comest thou, my feeble floweret, Planted by the hand of God.

Down below thy little rootlets

Seek and find thy proper food, Working with their strange alembics, Sager than our chemists could.

But thy stem, so soft and supple, Has no power to stand alone; And thy life, so full and forward, Brings no prop to be thine own.

Yet thou bearest tendings, reachings, Power to grasp and power to twine, And to make another's vigor

Be to thee as strength of thine.

Thus for man, and more for woman,
I have ever found it true-
None are stronger than the weakest,
Leaning, twining, mounting too.

FERDINAND BLANCHARD, M. D.

ERDINAND BLANCHARD was born in the

1851. His father, a staunch abolitionist, and one who supplemented his prayers with his deeds, died in defense of the cause in 1864. In his life of honest industry and zeal, tempered with a love of the poetical, we read with interest the early influences upon the life and character before us.

Mr. Blanchard fitted for college in the Montpelier high school and Vermont Conference Seminary, and for those institutions has always felt a warm regard. Graduating from Dartmouth College in 1874 and from the Medical School in 1877, he entered directly upon the practice of medicine and has followed that profession to the present, having removed, however, from his Vermont fields to the city of Washington. An enthusiast in botany, he has devoted such time as could be spared to its pursuit, and through exchanges and writings upon the subject, numbers as friends many distinguished scientists at home and abroad. But essentially a poet, these studies, with a liberal knowledge of the best in literature, a keen appreciation of the sublime and its reverse in human nature, and above all an unswerving allegiance to truth as the spring whence flows all good, his thoughts have often found their best expression in verse. Through the stress of a busy life little attention has been given to their publication. Still from time to time they have appeared in various periodicals, and have disclosed a depth of thought, quaint originality and happy fancy, which lead one to read the lines again and look with eagerness for others from the same pen. His interest in the burning social problems of the day make it probable that his best work is not yet accomplished; that we shall yet read earnest measures portraying the Brotherhood of Man; the grand possibilities of the future. A. F. S.

TO JOHN BURROUGHS.

O GENIAL John! beneath the shade

Why do you grope and peer and creep so? Aha! you seek the winsome maid,

The dainty, darling nymph, Calypso.

But vain your quest; from east to west,
From Marblehead to Tallahassee,
For long agone I sought her, John,

And found and wooed and won the lassie.