Choose Thou for me my friends,
My sickness or my health;
Choose Thou my cares for me,
My poverty or wealth.

Not mine, not mine the choice
In things or great or small;
Be Thou my Guide, my strength,
My Wisdom, and my All.

VIII.

HOW WE LEARN.

Great truths are dearly bought. The common truth,

Such as men give and take from day to day,

Comes in the common walk of easy life,
Blown by the careless wind across the way.

Bought in the market, at the current price,
Bred of the smile, the jest, perchance the bowl;
It tells no tales of daring or of worth,

Nor pierces even the surface of a soul.

Great truths are greatly won. Not found by chance,
Nor wafted on the breath of summer-dream;
But grasped in the great struggle of the soul,
Hard buffeting with adverse wind and stream.

Not in the general mart, 'mid corn and wine;
Not in the merchandise of gold and gems;
Not in the world's gay halls of midnight mirth;
Not 'mid the blaze of regal diadems;

But in the day of conflict, fear, and grief,
When the strong hand of God, put forth in might,
Ploughs up the subsoil of the stagnant heart,
And brings the imprisoned truth-seed to the light.

Wrung from the troubled spirit, in hard hours

Of weakness, solitude, perchance of pain,

Truth springs, like harvest from the well-ploughed field; And the soul feels it has not wept in vain.

IX.

WHO ARE THESE, AND WHENCE CAME THEY?

Not from Jerusalem alone,

To heaven the path ascends;

As near, as sure, as straight the way
That leads to the celestial day,

From farthest realms extends

Frigid or torrid zone.

What matters how or whence we start?

One is the crown to all;

One is the hard but glorious race,

Whatever be our starting-place;

Rings round the earth the call

That says, Arise, Depart!

From the balm-breathing, sun-loved isles.

Of the bright Southern Sea,

From the dead North's cloud-shadow'd pole

We gather to one gladsome goal,

One common home in thee,

City of sun and smiles,

The cold rough billow hinders none;

Nor helps the calm, fair main;

The brown rock of Norwegian gloom,
The verdure of Tahitian bloom,

The sands of Mizraim's plain,
Or peaks of Lebanon.

As from the green lands of the vine,
So from the snow-wastes pale,

We find the ever-open road

To the dear city of our God;

From Russian steppe, or Burman vale,
Or terraced Palestine.

Not from swift Jordan's sacred stream
Alone we mount above;

Indus or Danube, Thames or Rhone,
Rivers unsainted and unknown;

From each, the home of love
Beckons with heavenly gleam.

Not from grey Olivet alone

We see the gates of light;
From Morven's heath or Jungfrau's snow
We welcome the descending glow

Of pearl and chrysolite,

And the unsetting sun.

Not from Jerusalem alone

The Church ascends to God;

Strangers of every tongue and clime,
Pilgrims of every land and time,
Throng the well-trodden road
That leads up to the throne.

X.

HE LIVETH LONG, WHO LIVETH WELL.

He liveth long, who liveth well!
All other life is short and vain;

He liveth longest, who can tell

Of living most for heavenly gain.

He liveth long, who liveth well!
All else is being flung away;
He liveth longest, who can tell

Of true things truly done each day.

Waste not thy being; back to Him
Who freely gave it, freely give,
Else is that being but a dream,
'Tis but to be, and not to live.

Be wise and use thy wisdom well,

Who wisdom speaks, must live it too; He is the wisest, who can tell

How first he lived, then spoke, the true.

Be what thou seemest; live thy creed;
Hold up to earth the torch divine;
Be what thou prayest to be made;

Let the great Master's steps be thine.

Fill up each hour with what will last;
Buy up the moments as they go;
The life above, when this is past,
Is the ripe fruit of life below.

Sow truth if thou the true wouldst reap, Who sows the false shall reap the vain; Erect and sound thy conscience keep, From hollow words and deeds refrain.

Sow love and taste its fruitage pure,

Sow peace and reap its harvest bright; Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor, And find a harvest-home of light.

UNITARIANISM.

I.

SPIRITUAL FREEDOM.

And first, I may be asked what I mean by Inward Spiritual Freedom. The common and true answer is, that it is freedom from sin. I apprehend, however, that to many, if not to most, these words are too vague to convey a full and deep sense of the greatness of the blessing. Let me, then, offer a brief explanation; and the most important remark in illustrating this freedom is, that it is not a negative state, not the mere absence of sin; for such a freedom may be ascribed to inferior animals, or to children before becoming moral agents. Spiritual freedom is the attribute of a mind in which reason and conscience have begun to act, and which is free through its own energy, through fidelity to the truth, through resistance of temptation. I cannot therefore better give my views of spiritual freedom than by saying that it is moral energy or force of holy purpose put forth against the senses, against the passions, against the world, and thus liberating, the intellect, conscience, and will, so that they may act with strength and unfold themselves for ever. The essence of spiritual freedom is power. A man liberated from sensual lusts by a palsy would not therefore be inwardly free. He only is free who, through self-conflict and moral resolution, sustained by trust in God, subdues the passions which have debased him, and, escaping the thraldom of low objects, binds himself to pure and lofty ones. That mind alone is free which, looking to God as the inspirer and rewarder of virtue, adopts His law, written on the heart and in His word, as its supreme rule, and which, in obedience to this, governs itself, reveals itself, exerts faithfully its best powers, and unfolds itself by well-doing in whatever sphere God's providence assigns.