WILL YOU TAKE US? Weak and helpless, lone and friendless, Born to sorrows, seeming endless, Pale and weary with our moaning, Christ in heaven has heard our groaning, "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 H. E. B. THE COLORED SCHOOL. They sat in dusky circles round, 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, She pointed with it line and mark, 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 The Bible and the spelling-book 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, 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, Before the waving corn-fields 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. |