scene," he says, "is beyond description. Did you ever witness two hundred sinners, with one accord, in one place, weeping for their sins? Until you have, you can have no adequate conception of the solemnity of the occasion. I felt as if I were standing on the verge of the eternal world; while the floor was shaken by the trembling of anxious sinners, in view of a judgment to come. Some of the most heaven-daring rebels have been in awful distress." His habits of thought and labor were so concentrated and intense, that persons in whose conversion he felt particular interest would say of him, "He seemed determined I should be a Christian, and that he would be the instrument." Perfection was the aim he kept in view, and to which he tried to direct others. "Never think anything will do, if it can be better done," was one of his mottoes. In His influence in life must have been very stimulating, as even the written record of his untiring earnestness would encourage a thoughtful mind to "go and do likewise." writing to a merchant he gives the following advice, which any one of that profession might derive profit from: "Do not limit your ideas to the buying and selling of cloth. Acquaint yourself with the geography and particularly with the productions of every part of the earth, where the best kind of mercantile produce can be obtained, what events are likely to cause a change of markets, why an article is high at one time and low at another. Every scrap of information on such subjects should be hoarded like gold." When such a character passes from earth, its void is seen and felt afar, like the fall of a giant forest-tree, or a lost luminary. Has his mantle fallen on any? NEVER may he be old, answered Palladius, that doth not reverence that age whose heavinesse, if it waye downe the fraile and fleshly balance, it as much lifts up the noble and spirituall parte. - Sidney's Arcadia. 51 GOOD WORDS. BY W. BRUNTON. No sounds so sweet to the human ears as tell-tale words of Truth and Love; No songs that tender birds repeat, no lay of nightingale or dove! The spring-tide showers not half so blest, nor richest summer half so bright; The sky contains no gems so fair, nor earth such free and pure delight! We lean on them for dear support when life is dark and drear with grief; And child-like seek their mother-breast for sweet Religion's kind relief! We turn to them in peaceful calm, when May bestrews her choicest flowers, Divide with them the home of mirth, beguile with them life's happy hours. From all the hills of thought and love, good words descend in tidal streams, And plow their way in history's track, through lands of labor, rest, and dreams; The swelling waves advance in might, from Christian life and classic lore, And break in silver locks of spray, on free New England's shelving shore. A thousand rills descend in haste, from mountain-top through lowly dale, To meet the ocean's broad embrace with sister love and with it sail! Oh, hearts that love the glorious sight, be this your heart's eternal meed! The seedling word of living good has borne the flower and fruit of deed! Behold good words on life's fair tree, in wreaths of snow-white blos som wave; And where the kind is truly kind, the fruit appears all bright and brave. Messiah blesses on the Mount, in largest wisdom sweet and mild, Descends and outcast leper heals, with perfect health as when a child; While weakling Peter vows in haste, nor heeds his faint and faltering heart, And in the priceless hour of need, he takes the craven coward's part! The chosen Son divinely said, "I come to do thy will, O God," And in that pure devotion lived, and in that faith to Calvary trod ! And we the same good words repeat with seeming trust and show some love, Yet walk not in the narrow path that leads alone to peace above! 'Tis vain to speak the golden word unless the golden heart be there, And manly act step forth to claim by right divine the Pure and Fair! In paradisal days of old, the word and deed were man and wife, That blessed the world of wedded love with God's appointed Eden life! Oh, hearts that love the glorious sight, be this your heart's eternal meed; The seedling word of living good has borne the flower and fruit of deed! Go then, and let good words in life, by royal right, have princely sway; Go forth to men and men's retreats and spread their power from day to day! Let not thy speech allure thy soul to idle ease mid sin and strife; Nor native thoughts of good intent divert thy mind from active life! But be good words thy motto true, the inward grace of outward deed, And breathing love the sign of faith, and Christian life of Christian creed. Be nothing loth good words to speak, inspiring hearts faint, wan, and cold;, Be ready, sage, the mind expand, be ready, saint, the heart unfold! And thus the purest strength shall come to serve thy want in dark some night, And win for thee the Lord's "Well done," the charter of celestial light! 53 Awake, and do the righteous deed in honest love and worth sincere! And hearts that love the glorious sight, be this your heart's eternal The seedling word of living good has borne the flower and fruit of deed! ST. FRANCIS. THE latest volume of that charming series, the Macmillan Sunday Library, is a pleasant indication of the growing catholicity of the times. It is a sympathizing life of the founder of a great Romanist order, intended for Protestant readers, representing the saint as a noble example of humility, self-sacrifice, and childlike devotion. It has the more interest to us, not only that these Franciscans were the first explorers of our western wilderness, but that they are remembered with gratitude by all who have visited the Holy Land as the dispensers of hospitality to pilgrims from afar, and that in America to-day they are devotedly at work in their ministry to the poor. When the plague visited Damascus the last time, these Friars wisely determined that only one of the brethren should go out each day among the dying, and at night should sleep, if he returned, in an outside shed of the convent. If his bell was not heard to ring in the morning, another lot was drawn, and another martyr went forth, with no martial music to cheer him to the fight and no inspiring hope of turning defeat into victory. History says that the number of days when the plague was at its height numbered the deaths of the brethren; and that no one of them all hesitated to go out and die, without a friendly hand to close his eyes, or a chance of earthly fame as his reward. But the same spirit has marked their simple "annals of the poor" from the beginning. Appointed to deliver a discourse before the pope and his court as the test of his ability to preach, St. Francis amazed his cultivated audience by just such an extemporaneous appeal as had moved Italian streets to weep and market crowds to pray. His favorite Clara, as devoted a nun as he was friar, was not permitted to eat with him but once, and then they sat on the floor and broke together the piecemeal offerings of charity. And much of his experience is just so curious. A saintly brother had been buried in their chapel at Portiuncula, and, by the fame of miracles wrought at his grave, crowded the church and confused the worshipers. St. Francis quieted the disturbance in a most original way. Standing over the tomb, he commanded the deceased. to keep still. The immediate result can readily be explained. The sick folks and their friends believed in the living saint more than in the dead, and so they went away expecting no more relief where they were assured relief could not be found. Another remarkable thing is that when his death drew near, his native town was frantic to secure his remains and hallow Assissi forever with his saintly dust. So they would not let him die in peace outside of their gates. He was back almost by force, that the mantle of his holiness might rest upon the spot, and pilgrims gather for six hundred years to pray at his grave. We all remember that St. Francis was said to have received on his own body the very wounds of Christ. But it is not a little remarkable that the nail-prints were not exposed to view after his death, so as to secure overwhelming proof of this divine seal upon his mission. Some, we are told, were admitted to see the sacred stigmata; but, as the saint himself preserved a marked silence about these during his life, the veil was but partially lifted when his modesty could not be disturbed by public reverence. Mrs. Oliphant thinks this career of saintship no waste of life, because he and his order revived spiritual religion in a sadly worldly age; because, between the church which sold and the world which bought salvation, balancing a great sin by a new church, and if a monarch by a crusade, came these pure souls who won the right to serve God in hunger and cold by surrender of everything the world holds dear. Strange indeed that we should think of pitying these illuminated souls as sacrificing any real joys. To have gone back from his bare cell to his father's shop would have been in the saint's case a sacrifice indeed! For he was one of those "Kings and priests of humanity, on whose heads the precious ointment of charity has been so poured that it ran down to the skirts of their clothing, one of those who enter into the deep amity with God and with his creatures which makes men to be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field to be at peace with him.” F. W. H. |