"CAN FIND OUT GOD?"

If vexing thoughts within me rise,
And sore dismayed my spirit dies,
Still he who once vouchsafed to bear
The sickening anguish of despair
Shall sweetly soothe, shall gently dry,
The throbbing heart, the streaming eye.

When sorrowing o'er some stone I bend,
Which covers what was once a friend,
And from his voice, his hand, his smile,
Divides me for a little while,-
Thou, Saviour, mark'st the tears I shed,
For thou didst weep o'er Lazarus dead!

And oh, when I have safely past
Through every conflict but the last,
Still, still unchanging, watch beside
My dying bed, for thou hast died;
Then point to realms of cloudless day,
And wipe the latest tear away.

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SIR ROBERT Grant.

Can find out God?"

CANNOT find thee!

I

Still on restless pinion My spirit beats the void where thou dost dwell: I wander lost through all thy vast dominion,

And shrink beneath thy Light ineffable.

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I cannot find thee! Even when, most adoring,
Before thy shrine I bend in lowliest prayer,
Beyond these bounds of thought, my thought upsoaring,
From furthest quest comes back: Thou art not there.

Yet high above the limits of my seeing,
And folded far within the inmost heart,
And deep below the deeps of conscious being,
Thy splendor shineth: there, O God! thou art.

I cannot lose thee! Still in thee abiding,
The end is clear, how wide soe'er I roam;
The Law that holds the worlds my steps is guiding,
And I must rest at last in thee, my home.

ELIZA SCUdder.

Faith.

Ἐ

WE will not weep: for God is standing by us,

And tears will blind us to the blessed sight: We will not doubt, if darkness still doth try us, Our souls have promise of serenest light.

We will not faint, if heavy burdens bind us,
They press no harder than our souls can bear;
The thorniest way is lying still behind us,
We shall be braver for the past despair.

O not in doubt shall be our journey's ending;
Sin with its fears shall leave us at the last:
All its best hopes in glad fulfillment blending,
Life shall be with us when the Death is past.

Help us, O Father! when the world is pressing
On our frail hearts, that faint without their friend;
Help us, O Father! let thy constant blessing
Strengthen our weakness-till the joyful end.

W. H. HURLBURT.

OUR SAINTS.

ear.

Our Saints.

ROM the eternal shadow rounding
All unsure and starlight here,
Voices of our lost ones sounding,

FRO

Bid us be of heart and cheer,

Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward

Know we not our dead are looking
Downward, as in sad surprise,

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All our strife of words rebuking

With their mild and earnest eyes?

Shall we grieve the holy angels, shall we cloud their blessed

skies?

Let us draw their mantles o'er us,
Which have fallen in our way:

Let us do the work before us

Calmly, bravely, while we may,

Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day!

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Dum vivimus, vivamus.”

"LIVE while you live!" the epicure would say,

"And seize the pleasures of the present day!" "Live while you live!" the sacred Preacher cries, "And give to God each moment as it flies !" Lord, in my view let both united be, I live in pleasure while I live to thee.

PHILIP DODdridge.

Sonnet.

MARTHA, THY MAIDEN FOOT.

MARTHA, thy maiden foot is still so light

It leaves no legible trace on virgin snows:
And yet I ween that busily it goes

In duty's path, from happy morn to night,
Thy dimpled cheek is gay and softly bright
As the fixed beauty of the mossy rose;
Yet will it change its hue for others' woes,
And native red exchange for virgin white.
Thou bear'st a name by Jesus known and loved,
And Jesus gently did the maid reprove

For too much haste to show her eager love:
But blessed is she that may be so reproved :
Be Martha still in deed, and good endeavor,
In faith like Mary—at his feet forever.

HARTLEY Coleridge.

The Chambered Nautilus.

THIS

HIS is the ship of pearl which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main-
The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purple wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the syren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl:
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell

Where its dim-dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed.

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil:
Still as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

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While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a doom more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

OLIVER W. HOLMES.