WILL YOU TAKE US?

Weak and helpless, lone and friendless,
Wanderers in the world are we :

Born to sorrows, seeming endless,
We can neither face nor flee.

Pale and weary with our moaning,
Fainting in our misery,

Christ in heaven has heard our groaning,
And your footsteps turned our way.

"Whoso one such child receiveth,"

Hark! he saith, "receiveth me:”

Blessed he who thus believeth

That in us their Christ they see.

Ye who stand so far above us,

Will ye take us, wan and wild? Will ye

clothe and feed and love us

As ye would the holy Child?

Then within the home extending
Warmth to one such lowly guest,
Shall the blessed Christ, descending,
Breathe his peace, and make his rest.

H. E. B.

THE COLORED SCHOOL.

They sat in dusky circles round,
In shadows of the palm:
Soul and body alike unbound,

They sang their freedom psalm.

Before them hung on the lowly wall,

Stuck fast by a bayonet,

The rusted chain of the bondman's thrall, And the freedman's alphabet.

Wonder of Carolina soil!

It was a negro school:

The band that slavery ruled to toil

Now toiled themselves to rule.

The teacher in the center there

Lifted a shattered rod;

In her true grasp the wand of prayer,
The talisman of God.

She pointed with it line and mark,
Each dot and cross and dash;
Till light upon those spirits dark

Beamed from that driver's lash.

"Ah!" sighed an aged, wrinkled crone, "It seems so strange to me,

The stick that made the poor slaves groan Now marks the A, B, C!"

So, sunny land, thy coming day
Is dawning fair and bright;
For thou shalt cast thy chains away,
And spring to life and light.

The Bible and the spelling-book
Shall reap thy great reward;
Thy spear become a pruning-hook,
Thy plow entomb the sword.

Boston Transcript, alt.

SOWING AND REAPING.

Sow with a generous hand;

Pause not for toil or pain;

Weary not through the heat of summer, Weary not through the cold spring rain,

But wait till the autumn comes

For the sheaves of golden grain.

Scatter the seed, and fear not,
A table will be spread :
What matter if you are too weary
To eat your hard-earned bread?
Sow while the earth is broken,
For the hungry must be fed.

Sow while the seeds are lying

In the warm earth's bosom deep, And your warm tears fall upon it, They will stir in their quiet sleep; And the green blades rise the quicker, Perchance, for the tears you weep.

Then sow; for the hours are fleeting,
And the seed must fall to-day:
Care not what hands shall reap it,
Or if you shall have passed away

Before the waving corn-fields
Shall gladden the sunny day.

Sow; and look onward, upward,

Where the starry light appears; Where, in spite of the coward's doubting, Or your own heart's trembling fears, You shall reap in joy the harvest

You have sown to-day in tears.

A. A. Procter.

VIII.

THE CUP OF FORGIVENESS.