And seeking not for special signs
Of favor, is content to fall
Within the providence which shines
And rains on all.

WHITTIER.

He gibeth Quiet.

QUIET from God! how beautiful to keep

This treasure the All-merciful hath given! To feel, when we awake and when we sleep, Its incense round us, like a breath from heaven!

To sojourn in the world, and yet apart!

To dwell with God, and still with man to feel! To bear about forever in the heart

The gladness which his spirit doth reveal!

What shall make trouble? Not the holy thought
Of the departed; that will be a part

Of those undying things his peace hath wrought
Into a world of beauty in the heart.

What shall make trouble? Not slow-wasting pain, Nor even the threatening, certain stroke of death: These do but wear away, then break the chain Which bound the spirit down to things beneath.

ANONYMOUS.

Prager.

PRAYER is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed,

The motion of a hidden fire,

That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,

The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try,

Prayer the sublimest strains that reach

The Majesty on high.

Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice,

Returning from his ways;
While angels in their songs rejoice,
And cry, “Behold, he prays!"

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air,

His watchword at the gates of death;

He enters heaven with prayer.

MONTGOMERY.

THE OUTWARD LIFE.

The Word and Work.

WE own but what the conscience saith
To those blest few that listen well:
"No fruit can come of that man's faith
Who is to nature infidel.

"God stands not with himself at strife: His work is first, his word is next; Two sacred tomes, one book of life;

The comment this, and that the text.

"Ill worship they who drop the creed,

And take their chance with Jew and Turk;

But not so ill as they who read

The word, and doubt the greater work."

COVENTRY PATMORE.

L.M.

Manly Aspiration.

ALL thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will, —

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain,
In the bright fields of fair renown,
The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight;
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,

We

may discern

A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

LONGFELLOW.

Lobing our Neighbors.

"BE doers of the word, not hearers only, Deceiving your own souls;" thus saith the Lord; The silent godliness of works is living,

And holding views is not the soul's award.

Look to your Christ, how, 'mid the crowd's reviling, He held his peace! How oft do we do worse! The tongue but flashes on the theme too blinding, And since we see not, we pronounce a curse.

He loveth God the best who loves his neighbor;
The angels mark him as their fittest friend;
Doing on earth their ministering labor,

Sweet benedictions on his ways attend.

W.