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T lies around us like a cloud-
A world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.

THE OTHER WORLD.

Its gentle breezes fau our cheek;
Amid our worldly cares
Its gentle voices whisper love,

And mingle with our prayers.

weet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,
And palpitates the veil between
With breathings almost heard.

The silence-awful, sweet, and calm-
They have no power to break;
For mortal words are not for them
To utter or partake.

So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide,
So near to press they seem,—
They seem to lull us to our rest,
And melt into our dream.

And in the hush of rest they bring
'Tis easy now to see

How lovely and how sweet a pass
The hour of death may be!

To close the eye and close the ear,
Rapt in a trance of bliss,
And gently dream in loving arms
To swoon to that-from this.
Searce knowing if we wake or sleep,
Scarce asking where we are,
To feel all evil sink away,

All sorrow and all care.

Sweet souls around us! watch us still,
Press nearer to our side,
Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
With gentle helpings glide.

Let death between us be as naught,
A dried and vanished stream;

Your joy be the reality,

Our suffering life the dream.

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TERNITY will be one glorious morning, with the sun ever climbing higher and higher; one blessed spring-time, and yet richer summer-every plant in full flower, but every flower the bud of a lovelier.

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I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY.

WOULD not live alway: I ask not to stay
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way;
Where, seeking for rest, I but hover around
Like the patriarch's bird, and no resting is found;
Where Hope, when she paints her gay bow in the
air,

Leaves her brilliance to fade in the night of despair,
And Joy's fleeting angel ne'er sheds a glad ray,
Save the gleam of the plumage that bears him away.

I would not live alway, thus fettered by sin,
Temptation without, and corruption within;
In a moment of strength if I sever the chain,
Scarce the victory's mine ere I'm captive again.
E'en the rapture of pardon is mingled with fears,
And the cup of thanksgiving with penitent tears.
The festival trump calls for jubilant songs,
But my spirit her own miserere prolongs.

I would not live alway: no, welcome the tomb;
Immortality's lamp burns there bright 'mid the gloom.
There, too, is the pillow where Christ bowed his
head-

O, soft be my slumbers on that holy bed!

And then the glad morn soon to follow that night,
When the sunrise of glory shall burst on my sight,
And the full matin-song, as the sleepers arise,
To shout in the morning, shall peal through the skies.

Who, who would live alway, away from his God,
Away from yon heaven, that blissful abode,
Where rivers of pleasure flow o'er the bright plains,
And the noontide of glory eternally reigns;
Where the saints of all ages in harmony meet,
Their Saviour and brethren transported to greet,
While the anthems of rapture unceasingly roll,
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul?
That heavenly music! what is it I hear?
The notes of the harpers ring sweet on my ear.
And see soft unfolding those portals of gold,
The King all arrayed in his beauty behold!
O give me, O give me the wings of a dove!

Let me hasten my flight to those mansions above,
Ay, 'tis now that my soul on swift pinions would soar,
And in ecstacy bid earth adieu evermore.

WILLIAM AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG.

THE REST OF THE SOUL.

N that hour which of all the twenty-four is most emblematical of heaven and suggestive of repose, the eventide, in which instinctively Isaac went into the fields to meditate when the work of the day is done, when the mind has ceased its tension, when the passions are lulled to rest in spite of themselves, by the spell of the quiet starlit sky-it is then, amidst the silence of the lull of all the lower parts of our nature, that the soul comes forth to do its work. Then the peculiar, strange work of the soul, which the intellect cannot do, meditation begins; awe and worship and wonder are in full exercise; and love begins then its purest form of mystic adoration, and pervasive and undefined tenderness, separate from all that is coarse and earthly, swelling as if it would embrace the All in its desire to bless, and lose itself in the sea of the love of God. the soul-the exercise and play of all the nobler powers.

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"FOLLOW ME."

SHE shadow of the mountain falls athwart the lowly plain,

And the shadow of the cloudlet hangs above the mountain's head:

And the highest hearts and lowest wear the shadow of some pain,

And the smile has scarcely flitted ere the anguished tear is shed.

For no eyes have there been ever without a weary

tear,

And those lips cannot be human which have never heaved a sigh;

For without the dreary winter there has never been a year,

And the tempests hide their terrors in the calmest summer sky.

So this dreamy life is passing- and we move amidst its maze,

And we grope along together, half in darkness, half in light;

And our hearts are often burdened with the mysteries of our ways.

Which are never all in shadow, and are never wholly bright.

And our dim eyes ask a beacon, and our weary feet a guide,

And our hearts of all life's mysteries seek the meaning and the key;

And a cross gleams o'er our pathway, on it hangs the Crucified,

And He answers all our yearnings by the whisper, "Follow Me."

ALL BEFORE.

ABRAM T. RYAN.

HEARTS that never cease to yearn.

O brimming tears that ne'er are dried! The dead, though they depart, return As though they had not died!

The living are the only dead;

The dead live — nevermore to die!
And often when we mourn them fled,
They never were so nigh!

And though they lie beneath the waves,
Or sleep within the churchyard dim-
(Ah! through how many different graves
God's children go to him!)—

Yet every grave gives up its dead

Ere it is overgrown with grass; Then why should hopeless tears be shed, Or need we cry, "Alas"?

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Y

THE DIVINE ABODE.

E golden lamps of heaven, farewell,

With all your feeble light!

Farewell, thou ever-changing moon
Pale empress of the night!

And thou, refulgent orb of day,

In brighter flames arrayed;

My soul, that springs beyond thy sphere, No more demands thy aid.

Ye stars are but the shining dust

Of my divine abode;

The pavement of those heavenly courts
Where I shall see my God.

There all the millions of his saints

Shall in one song unite;

And each the bliss of all shall view
With infinite delight.

PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

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