Riper and riper now,

Each hour let me become, Less fit for scenes below,

More fit for such a home.

More moulded to Thy will,

Lord, let Thy servant be,

Higher and higher still,
Liker and liker thee.

Leave nought that is unmeet; Of all that is mine own

Strip me; and so complete My training for the throne.

STRENGTH BY THE WAY.

JESUS, while this rough desert-soil

I tread, be Thou my guide and stay ; Nerve me for conflict and for toil;

Uphold me on my stranger-way.

Jesus, in heaviness and fear,

'Mid cloud, and shade, and gloom I stray, For earth's last night is drawing near ; O cheer me on my stranger-way.

Jesus, in solitude and grief,

When sun and stars withhold their ray, Make haste, make haste to my relief; O light me on my stranger-way.

Jesus, in weakness of this flesh,

When Satan grasps me for his prey; O give me victory afresh ;

And speed me on my stranger-way.

Jesus, my righteousness and strength,
My more than life, my more than day;

Bring, bring deliverance at length;
O come and end my stranger-way.

THE STRANGER SEA-BIRD.

FAR from his breezy home of cliff and billow,
Yon sea-bird folds his wing;

Upon the tremulous bough of this stream-shading willow

He stays his wandering.

Fanned by fresh leaves, and soothed by blossoms closing,
His lullaby the stream,

A stranger, in bewildered loneliness reposing,
He dreams his ocean-dream :-

His dream of ocean-haunts, and ocean-brightness,

The rock, the wave, the foam,

The blue above, beneath, the sea-cloud's trail of whiteness,

His unforgotten home.

And he would fly, but cannot, for the shadows

Of night have barred his way;

How could he search a path across these woods and meadows

To his far sea-home's spray?

Dark miles of thicket, swamp, and moorland dreary Forbid his hopeless flight;

With plumage soiled, eye dim, heart faint, and wing

all weary,

He waits for sun and light.

And I, in this far land, a timid stranger,
Resting by Time's lone stream,

Lie dreaming, hour by hour, beset with night and danger,

The Church's Patmos-dream :

The dream of home possessed, and all home's gladness,
Beyond these unknown hills,

Of solace after earth's sore days of stranger-sadness,
Beside the eternal rills.

Life's exile past, all told its broken story ;

Night, death, and evil gone ;

This more than Egypt-shame exchanged for Canaan

glory,

And the bright city won!

Come then, O Christ! earth's Monarch and Redeemer,

Thy glorious Eden bring,

Where I, even I, at last, no more a trembling dreamer, Shall fold my heavy wing.

HOPE DEFERRED.

How oft the morn has cheated us,
As with unsleeping eye,

We lay upon our silent couch,

And watched the changing sky.

How often, as the heavy hours

Stole by with soundless haste,

We've said, Ah now the dawn begins,

The weary night is past.

Hours went and came, but yet no streak

On eastern cloud or hill,

We looked in vain, no sign appeared, 'Twas night and silence still.

'Twas but the starlight not the sun,

The moonlight not the day,

We thought it was the dawn, but now, That dawn seems far away.