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THE POET'S TRUSTING HEART.

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So I ask thee for the daily strength,
To none that ask denied,

And a mind to blend with outward life,
While keeping at thy side;

Content to fill a little space,

If thou be glorified.

And if some things I do not ask

In my cup of blessing be,

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I would have my spirit filled the more
With grateful love to thee;
More careful- not to serve thee much,
But to please thee perfectly.

There are briers besetting every path,
That call for patient care;
There is a cross in every lot,

And an earnest need for prayer;
But a lowly heart that leans on thee
Is happy anywhere.

In a service which thy will appoints
There are no bonds for me;
For my secret heart is taught the truth
That makes thy children free;
And a life of self-renouncing love
Is a life of liberty.

ANNA LETITIA WARING.

SUPPLICATION.

FATHER, I know that all my life
Is portioned out for me,

And the changes that will surely come

I do not fear to see;

But I ask thee for a present mind
Intent on pleasing thee.

I ask thee for a thoughtful love,
Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,

And to wipe the weeping eyes;
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.

I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do,

Or secret thing to know;

I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.

Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoe'er estate,

I have a fellowship with hearts
To keep and cultivate:

And a work of lowly love to do.

For the Lord on whom I wait.

THY WILL BE DONE!
WE see not, know not: all our way
Is night, with Thee alone is day.
From out the torrent's troubled drift,
Above the storm, our prayers we lift,
Thy will be done!

The flesh may fail, the heart may faint,
But who are we to make complaint,
Or dare to plead, in times like these,
The weakness of our love of ease?

Thy will be done!

We take with solemn thankfulness
Our burden up, nor ask it less;
And count it joy that even we
May suffer, serve, or wait for thee,
Whose will be done!

Though dim as yet in tint and line,
We trace thy picture's wise design,
And thank thee that our age supplies
Its dark relief of sacrifice.
Thy will be done!

And if, in our unworthiness,
Thy sacrificial wine we press;

If from thy ordeal's heated bars

Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,

Thy will be done!

If, for the age to come, this hour
Of trial hath vicarious power,
And, blest by thee, our present pain
Be liberty's eternal gain,

Thy will be done!

Strike, thou the Master, we thy keys,
The anthem of the destinies !
The minor of thy loftier strain
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain,
Thy will be done!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

HIS WAY IS BEST.

THE Snows of winter nurse the hopeful corn: Long, patient months produce the harvest fair; The darkling clouds the sunset's throne prepare;

Mid glacier crags are noblest rivers born; The tempest tracks the mountain's face adorn; In deepest mines are treasured gems most

rare;

The port is calmer reached through storms of

care;

The night of weeping melts in joyful morn.
Events are not as first they meet the sight;
The sons of God by passing griefs are blest;
Amid the dark he ever leads to light;
His purposes and plans are always right.
Commit thy way to him, his way is best;
Oh, wait for him, wait patiently and rest.

CHRISTOPHER NEWMAN HALL.

MY PSALM.

I MOURN no more my vanished years:
Beneath a tender rain,

An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.

The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;

The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.

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Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;

The woods shall wear their robes of praise.
The south-wind softly sigh,

And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.

Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;

The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.

But smiting hands shall learn to heal, -
To build as to destroy;

Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.

All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told !

Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track ; ·
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back ;

That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,

Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good:

That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,

Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;

That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair; —

That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

THE POET'S TRUSTING HEART.

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And so the shadows fall apart,

And so the west-winds play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day.

JOHN GREENLEAF Whittier.

HOPE EVERMORE AND BELIEVE.

ARTHUR Hugh Clough, of whom Emerson said that he would make Tennyson look to his laurels, was born at Liverpool, Jan. 1, 1819. He was educated at Rugby, under the celebrated Dr. Arnold, who, as Clough's fellowpupil, Dean Stanley, says, watched over his career with an uncommonly lively interest. He subsequently won laurels at Oxford, but found himself out of sympathy with the prevailing thought there, and left, coming to America, where he lived for a few months in 1852, and made many friends. Having an appointment tendered him in connection with the privy council office, he returned to England. His health, never robust, failed under the pressure of efforts in aid of the work of his wife's cousin, Florence Nightingale, and he died at Florence, where he had gone with Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Tennyson, Nov. 13, 1861.

HOPE evermore and believe, O man, for e’en as thy thought

So are the things that thou see'st; e'en as thy hope and belief.

Cowardly art thou and timid? They rise to

provoke thee against them.

Hast thou courage? Enough, see them exulting to yield.

Yea, the rough rock the dull earth, the wild

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Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action,

With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth.

Go; say not in thy heart, And what then were it accomplished,

Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good!

Go, when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accomplished,

What thou hast done and shalt do, shall be declared to thee then.

Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit

Say to thyself: It is good: yet is there better

than it.

This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little;

Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

SECRET.

WHEN winds are raging o'er the upper ocean, And billows wild contend with angry roar, 'T is said, far down beneath the wild commotion,

That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore.

Far, far beneath, the noise of tempests dieth, And silver waves chime ever peacefully, And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea.

So to the heart that knows thy love, O Purest !
There is a temple, sacred evermore,
And all the babble of life's angry voices

Dies in hushed stillness at its peaceful door.

Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth,

And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully,

And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, Disturbs the soul that dwells, O Lord, in

thee.

O rest of rests! O peace, serene, eternal! Thou ever livest, and thou changest never; And in the secret of thy presence dwelleth Fulness of joy, forever and forever!

HARRIET BEEcher Stowe.

GOD'S PRAISE.

"YES! I DO FEEL, MY GOD, THAT I AM THINE!"

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Whose streams do water Paradise,

GOD'S PRAISE.

And all the earth beside! Thine upper and thy nether springs Make both thy worlds to thrive; Under thy warm and sheltering wings Thou keep'st two broods alive.

Thy arm of might, most mighty King, Both rocks and hearts doth break: My God, thou canst do everything

But what should show thee weak. Thou canst not cross thyself, or be Less than thyself, or poor; But whatsoever pleaseth thee, That canst thou do, and more.

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Mercy is God's memorial,
And in all ages praised:
My God, thine only Son did fall,
That Mercy might be raised.

Thy bright back-parts, O God of grace,
I humbly here adore:

Show me thy glory and thy face,

That I may praise thee more. Since none can see thy face and live, For me to die is best:

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Through Jordan's streams who would not dive, To land at Canaan's rest?

JOHN MASON.

THE HUNDREDTH PSALM.

This psalm is attributed to WILLIAM KETHE, an exile with John Knox at Geneva, in 1555- He was chaplain of the English army in Havre, in 1563, and rector of the parish of Okeford in Dorset.

ALL people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice:
Him serve with fear, his praise forth tell,
Come ye before him and rejoice.

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid he did us make:
We are his flock, he doth us feed,
And for his sheep he doth us take.

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