Spirit of truth and love,
Life-giving holy Dove,

Shed forth Thy light;
Heal every sinner's smart,
Still every throbbing heart,
And Thine own peace impart.
Bless us to-night.

The Hour of Prager.

HILD, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;

Mother, with thine earnest eye

Ever following silently;

Father, by the breeze of eve
Called thy harvest-work to leave-
Pray: ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee!

Traveller, in the stranger's land,
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone ;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor on the darkening sea-

Lift the heart and bend the knee!

Warrior, that from battle won
Breathest now at set of sun;
Woman, o'er the lowly slain
Weeping on his burial-plain;
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie,

Heaven's first star alike ye see—

Lift the heart and bend the knee!

A Psalm of Life.

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.

ELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream;

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the

grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

Longfellow.

The Hours.

HE hours are viewless angels,
That still go gliding by,
And bear each minute's record up
To Him who sits on high;
And we, who walk among them,

As one by one departs,

See not that they are hovering
For ever round our hearts.

Like summer-bees, that hover
Around the idle flowers,

They gather every act and thought,
Those viewless angel-hours;

The poison or the nectar

The heart's deep flower-cups yield,
A sample still they gather swift
And leave us in the field.

And some flit by on pinions

Of joyous gold and blue,

And some flag on with drooping wings

Of sorrow's darker hue;
But still they steal the record,
And bear it far away;

Their mission-flight, by day or night,

No magic power can stay.

And as we spend each minute

That God to us hath given,

The deeds are known before His throne,
The tale is told in heaven.

Those bee-like hours we see not,

Nor hear their noiseless wings;
We often feel, too oft, when flown,
That they have left their stings.

So, teach me, heavenly Father,
To meet each flying hour,
That as they go they may not show
My heart a poison flower!

So when death brings its shadows,
The hours that linger last

Shall bear my hopes on angel wings,
Unfetter'd by the past.

C. P. Cranch.