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ABIDE WITH US: FOR IT IS TOWARD EVENING.

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SHALL WE MEET AGAIN?

EN seldom think of the shadow that falls across their own path, hiding forever from their eyes the traces of the loved ones, whose living smiles were the sunlight of their existence. Death is the great antagonist of life, and the cold thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feasts. We do not want to go through the dark valley, although its passages may lead to Paradise; and, with Charles Lamb, we do not want to lie down in the muddy grave even with kings and princes for our bed-fellows. But The fiat of nature is inexorable. There is no appeal of relief from the great law which dooms us to dust. We flourish and we fade as the leaves of the forest, and the flower that blooms and withers in a day has not a frailer hold upon life than the mightiest monarch that ever shook the earth with his footsteps. Generations of men appear and vanish as the grass, and the countless multitude that throngs the world to-day will to-morrow disappear as the footsteps on the shore. In the beautiful drama of Ion, the instinct of immortality, so eloquently uttered by the death-devoted Greek, finds a deep response in every thoughful soul. When about to yield his young existence as a sacrifice to fate, his beloved Clemanthe asks if they shall not meet again, to which he replies: "I have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal- of the streams that flow forever - of the stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirit hath walked in glory. All were dumb. But while I gaze upon thy face, I feel that there is something in the love that mantles through its beauty that cannot wholly perish. We shall meet again, Clemanthe."

GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

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EACE, troubled heart! the way 's not long be-
fore thee,

Lay down thy burden; say to sorrow, cease;
Be yon soft azure hand serenely o'er thee,
The blue, bright border to God's sphere of
peace.

Peace, troubled heart! the hasty word may fret thee,
The cruel word may coldly probe and pierce;
The Christ who suffered, loves thee, never leaves thee,
He pours His balm upon the fever fierce.
Peace, troubled heart! though marred thy best be-
havior,

To thy deep longing, thine aspiring cry,
Listens thy Heavenly Kinsman, thy dear Saviour
Healeth thy life-hurt, wipeth thy tears dry.

Peace, lonely heart! Be patient. Thou 'lt see, waiting,
How perfect sympathy and love may meet;
Be patient, praying; all earth's discord grating,
Will melt at last to love divine, complete.

Peace, troubled heart! O coward, weakly shrinking
Back from the chalice! Saints and martyrs' meed,
The chrism of suffering. Earthward, poor souls
sinking,

Yearn for the heavenly joy, through human need.

Peace, troubled heart! see yon strong ships all sailing Through sun and storm, on to the solemn sea; Through summer calms, through wintry tempest quailing,

Thus sailest thou, out to Infinity.

Peace, troubled heart! beyond these bitter breezes,
Mid Isles of Paradise, in airs of balm,
Where cruel wind or word ne'er wounds or freezes,
Thou 'It gain at last the everlasting calm.

Peace, troubled heart! go out beneath the ether, Rest in the marvelous sunshine of the sky; Watch the bees sail and sing in sunny leisure; List the waves laughing as they loiter by.

Peace, troubled heart! if minor notes of sadness Tremble through Nature's voices, every sigh Quickens the anthem of her mightier gladness, Foretells fruition perfect by and by.

Peace, troubled heart! life's ever-mocking seeming, Life's weary dearth, life's aching sense of loss, Are fitful phantoms of its transient dreaming, While Faith stands steadfast gazing on the Cross.

MARY CLEMMER AMES.

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T

THE MOUNTAINS OF LIFE.

HERE'S a land far away, 'mid the stars, we are told,

Where they know not the sorrows of time.— Where the pure waters wander through valleys of gold,

And life is a treasure sublime;

"Tis the land of our God. 'tis the home of the soul,
Where the ages of splendor eternally roll;
Where the way-weary traveler reaches his goal,
On the evergreen Mountains of Life.

Our gaze cannot soar to that beautiful land,
But our visions have told of its bliss.

And our souls by the gale of its gardens are
fanned,

When we faint in the desert of this;

And we sometimes have longed for its holy repose, When our spirits were torn with temptations and

woes,

And we've drank from the tide of the river that flows
From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

Oh, the stars never tread the blue heavens at night,
But we think where the ransomed have trod!
And the day never smiles from his palace of light,
But we feel the bright smile of our God!
We are traveling homeward through changes and
gloom,

To a kingdom where pleasures unceasingly bloom, And our guide is the glory that shines through the tomb

From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

J. G. CLARK.

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IMMORTALITY.

A voice within us speaks that startling word: 'Man, thou shalt never die!" Celestial voices Hymn it unto our souls; according harps, By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars Of morning sang together, sound forth still of our great immortality:

The song

Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas, Join in this solemn, universal song,

Oh! listen, ye, our spirits; drink it in

From all the air. "Tis in the gentle moonlight;

"Tis floating 'mid Day's setting glories; Night,
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears:
Night, and the dawn, bright day, and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expause,

As one vast mystic instrument, are touched
By an unseen living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.

The dying hear it; and, as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.

RICHARD HENRY DANA.

THE BETTER WAY.

ND didst thou love the race that loved not thee?

And didst thou take to heaven a human brow? Dost plead with man's voice by the marvelous sea,

Art thou his kinsman now?

O God. O kinsman loved, but not enough!
O man, with eyes majestic after death,
Whose feet have toiled along our pathways rough,
Whose lips drawn human breath!

By that one likeness which is ours and thine,
By that one nature which doth hold us kin,

By that high heaven where, sinless, thou dost shine,
To draw us sinners in,

By thy last silence in the judgment-hall,
By long foreknowledge of the deadly tree,
By darkness, by the wormwood and the gall,
I pray Thee visit me.

Come, lest this heart should, cold and cast away,
Die ere the guest adored she entertained-
Lest eyes which never saw Thine earthly day,
Should miss Thy heavenly reign.

Come, weary-eyed from seeking in the night
Thy wanderers strayed upon the pathless wold,

Who, wounded, dying, cry to Thee for light, And cannot find their fold.

And deign, O watcher with the sleepless brow,
Pathetic in its yearning-deign reply;

Is there, O is there aught that such as Thou
Wouldst take from such as I?

Are there no briers across Thy pathway thrust, Are there no thorns that compass it about? Nor any stones that Thou wilt deign to trust My hands to gather out?

O, if Thou wilt, and if such bliss might be,
It were a cure for doubt, regret, delay;
Let my lost pathway go— what aileth me?
There is a better way.

What though unmarked the happy workman toil,
And break, unthanked of man, the stubborn clod?
It is enough, for sacred is the soil,

Dear are the hills of God.

Far better in its place the lowliest bird

Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song, Than that a seraph strayed should take the word And sing His glory wrong.

JEAN INGELOW.

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LAY me down to sleep,

With little care Whether my waking find

Me here, or there.

A bowing, burdened head
That only asks to rest,
Unquestioning, upon
A loving breast.

My good right hand forgets

Its cunning now;

To march the weary march

I know not how.

REST.

I am not eager, bold,

Nor strong,-all that is past;

I am ready not to do,

At last, at last.

My half-day's work is done,
And this is all my part,—

I give a patient God

My patient heart;

And grasp his banner still,
Though all the blue be dim;
These stripes as well as stars
Lead after him.

MAY WOOLSEY HOWLAND.

O

ONLY WAITING.

A very old man in an alms-house was asked what he was doing now.

NLY waiting till the shadows

Are a little longer grown;

Only waiting till the glimmer

Of the day's last beam is flown; Till the night of earth is faded

From the heart once full of day; Till the dawn of heaven is breaking Through the twilight soft and gray.

Only waiting till the reapers

Have the last sheaf gathered home; For the summer-time is faded,

And the autumn winds have come. Quickly, reapers, gather quickly

The last ripe hours of my heart, For the bloom of life is withered, And I hasten to depart.

He replied, "Only waiting."

Only waiting till the angels

Open wide the mystic gate.

At whose feet I long have lingered,
Weary, poor and desolate.
Even now I hear the footsteps,

And their voices far away;
If they call me, I am waiting,
Only waiting to obey.

Only waiting till the shadows

Are a little longer grown;
Only waiting till the glimmer

Of the day's last beam is flown;
Then from out the gathered darkness,
Holy, deathless stars shall rise,
By whose light my soul shall gladly
Tread its pathway to the skies.

FRANCES LAUGHTON MACE.

IFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me 's a secret yet.

But this I know: when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head.
No clod so valueless shall be

As all that then remains of me.

O, whither, whither dost thou fly?

Where bend unseen thy trackless course?

And, in this strange divorce,

Ah, tell where I must seek this compound, I?

To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
From whence thy essence came,
Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed

From matter's base encumbering weed?

LIFE.

Or dost thou, hid from sight,

Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank, oblivious years the appointed hour
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou, without thought or feeling be?
O, say, what art thou, when no more thou 'rt thee?
Life! we've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
"T is hard to part when friends are dear,-
Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not Good Night,—but in some brighter clime Bid me Good Morning.

ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD.

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