THE DEATH OF STEPHEN. WITH awful dread his murderers shook, As, radiant and serene, The lustre of his dying look Was like an angel's seen; Or Moses' face of paly light, When down the mount he trod, To us, with all his constancy, To look above by faith, and see Revealments bright of heaven. And power to speak our triumphs out, As our last hour draws near, While neither clouds of fear nor doubt Before our view appear. THE CHRISTMAS OFFERING. WE Come not with a costly store, From Ophir's shore of gold: No odorous myrrh of Araby But still our love would bring its best, By fierce affliction's fiery test, And seven times purified: The fragrant graces of the mind, To give their perfume out, will find Acceptance in thy sight. JOHN G. WHITTIER, A MEMBER of the Society of Friends, and one of the most brilliant poets of the age, was born in 1808, at Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he now resides. A complete collection of his works has just been published in one large octavo volume, with illustrative engravings, by B. B. Mussey & Co. of Boston. PALESTINE. BLEST land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song, Blue sea of the hills!-in my spirit I hear Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down, Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, Hark, a sound in the valley! where, swollen and strong, Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain, There, down from his mountains stern Zebulon came, There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen, With the mountains around and the valleys between; And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod: O, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came- And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet, But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet; For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone, And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone. But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode Of humanity clothed in the brightness of God? Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when, And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, O, the outward hath gone!—but, in glory and power, On the heart's secret altar is burning the same! MARY G, aged 18, a "Sister of Charity," died in one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian Cholera, while in voluntary attendance on the sick. 66 'BRING out your dead!" the midnight street Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call; Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet; Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet, "What! only one!" the brutal hackman said, As rolled that dead-cart slowly by, With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall! To hear it and to die! Onward it rolled; while oft the driver stayed, It paused beside the burial-place : "Toss in your load!" and it was done. With quick hand and averted face, Hastily to the grave's embrace They cast them, one by one Stranger and friend—the evil and the just, And thou, young martyr! thou wast there: Rose through the damp and noisome air, Giving thee to thy God; Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave! Yet, gentle sufferer, there shall be, In every heart of kindly feeling, A rite as holy paid to thee As if beneath the convent-tree Thy sisterhood were kneeling, At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping. For thou wast one in whom the light Of Heaven's own love was kindled well, Enduring, with a martyr's might, Far more than words may tell: Where manly hearts were failing, where Poison with every breath; Yet shrinking not from offices of dread From the wrung dying and the unconscious dead. And, where the sickly taper shed Its light through vapors, damp, confined, Of suffering humankind! Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay, 45 |