If our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His word; And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of our Lord.

THE GIFTS OF GOD.

My Soul! what hast thou done for God? Look o'er thy misspent years and see; Sum up what thou hast done for God,

And then what God hath done for thee.

He made thee when He might have made
A soul that would have loved Him more:
He rescued thee from nothingness,

And set thee on life's happy shore.

He placed an angel at thy side,

And strewed joys round thee on thy way; He gave thee rights thou couldst not claim, And life, free life, before thee lay.

Had God in heaven no work to do
But miracles of love for thee?
No world to rule, no joy in Self,
And in His own infinity?

So must it seem to our blind eyes:
He gave His love no Sabbath rest,
Still plotting happiness for men,

And new designs to make them blest.
From out His glorious Bosom came
His only, His Eternal Son;
He freed the race of Satan's slaves,

And with His Blood sin's captives won.

The world rose up against His love:
New love the vile rebellion met,
As though God only looked at sin
Its guilt to pardon and forget.

For His Eternal Spirit came

To raise the thankless slaves to sons,
And with the sevenfold gifts of love
To crown His own elected ones.

Men spurned His grace; their lips blasphemed
The Love who made Himself their slave;
They grieved that blessed Comforter

And turned against Him what He gave.

Yet still the sun is fair by day,

The moon still beautiful by night;
The world goes round and joy with it,
And life, free life, is men's delight.

No voice God's wondrous silence breaks,
No hand put forth His anger tells;
But He, the Omnipotent and Dread,

On high in humblest patience dwells.

The Son hath come; and maddened sin
The world's Creator crucified;
The Spirit comes, and stays, while men
His presence doubt, His gifts deride.

And now the Father keeps Himself,
In patient and forbearing love,

To be His creature's heritage
In that undying life above.

Oh wonderful, oh passing thought,

The love that God hath had for thee, Spending on thee no less a sum Than the Undivided Trinity!

Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost,
Exhausted for a thing like this-
The world's whole government disposed
For one ungrateful creature's bliss!

What hast thou done for God, my soul?

Look o'er thy misspent years and see; Cry from thy worse than nothingness, Cry for His mercy upon thee.

DISTRACTIONS IN PRAYER.

Ан, dearest Lord! I cannot pray,
My fancy is not free;
Unmannerly distractions come,

And force my thoughts from Thee.

The world that looks so dull all day
Glows bright on me at prayer,
And plans that ask no thought but then
Wake up and meet me there.

All Nature one full fountain seems

Of dreamy sight and sound, Which, when I kneel, breaks up its deeps, And makes a deluge round.

Old voices murmur in my ear,

New hopes start into life, And past and future gaily blend In one bewitching strife.

My very flesh has restless fits;
My changeful limbs conspire
With all these phantoms of the mind
My inner self to tire.

I cannot pray; yet, Lord! Thou know'st
The pain it is to me

To have my vainly struggling thoughts Thus torn away from Thee.

Sweet Jesus! teach me how to prize
These tedious hours when I,
Foolish and mute before Thy Face,
In helpless worship lie.

Prayer was not meant for luxury,
Or selfish pastime sweet;

It is the prostrate creature's place
At his Creator's Feet.

Had I, dear Lord! no pleasure found
But in the thought of Thee,

Prayer would have come unsought, and been
A truer liberty.

Yet Thou art oft most present, Lord!
In weak, distracted prayer:

A sinner out of heart with self
Most often finds Thee there.

493

For prayer that humbles sets the soul

From all illusions free,

And teaches it how utterly,

Dear Lord! it hangs on Thee.

The heart, that on self-sacrifice

Is covetously bent,

Will bless Thy chastening hand that makes
Its prayer its punishment.

My Saviour! why should I complain,
And why fear aught but sin?
Distractions are but outward things;
Thy peace dwells far within.

These surface-troubles come and go,
Like rufflings of the sea;
The deeper depth is out of reach
To all, my God, but Thee.

THE OLD LABORER.

WHAT end doth he fulfil?

He seems without a will,

Stupid, unhelpful, helpless, age-worn man!
He hath let the years pass;
He hath toiled and heard Mass,

Done what he could, and now does what he can.

And this forsooth is all!
A plant or animal

Hath a more positive work to do than he:
Along his daily beat,
Delighting in the heat,

He crawls in sunshine which he does not see.

What doth God get from him?
His very mind is dim,

Too weak to love, and too obtuse to fear.
Is there glory in his strife?

Is there meaning in his life?

Can God hold such a thing-like person dear?

Peace! he is dying now;

No light is on his brow;

He makes no sign, but without sign departs.
The poor die often so-
And yet they long to go,

To take to God their over-weighted hearts.

Born only to endure,

The patient passive poor

Seem useful chiefly by their multitude; For they are men who keep Their lives secret and deep; Alas! the poor are seldom understood.

This laborer that is gone
Was childless and alone,

And homeless as his Saviour was before him;
He told in no man's ear

His longing, love, or fear,

Nor what he thought of life as it passed o'er him.

He had so long been old,
His heart was close and cold;

He had no love to take, no love to give:
Men almost wished him dead;
'T was best for him, they said;

'T was such a weary sight to see him live.

He walked with painful stoop,

As if life made him droop,

And care had fastened fetters round his feet;
He saw no bright blue sky,
Except what met his eye

Reflected from the rain-pools in the street.

To whom was, he of good?
He slept and he took food,

He used the earth and air, and kindled fire:
He bore to take relief,

Less as a right than grief

To what might such a soul as his aspire?

His inexpressive eye

Peered round him vacantly,

As if whate'er he did he would be chidden;
He seemed a mere growth of earth;
Yet even he had mirth,

As the great angels have, untold and hidden.

Alway his downcast eye
Was laughing silently,

As if he found some jubilee in thinking;
For his one thought was God,

In that one thought he abode,
For ever in that thought more deeply sinking.
Thus did he live his life,

A kind of passive strife,

Upon the God within his heart relying;
Men left him all alone,

Because he was unknown,

But he heard the angels sing when he was dying

God judges by a light

Which baffles mortal sight,

And the useless-seeming man the crown hath

won:

In his vast world above,

A world of broader love,

God hath some grand employment for His son.

AUTUMN.

AUTUMN once more begins to teach;
Sere leaves their annual sermon preach;
And with the southward-slipping sun
Another stage of life is done.
The day is of a paler hue,
The night is of a darker blue,
Just as it was a year ago:
For time runs fast, but grace is slow!

Life glides away in many a bend,
In chapters which begin and end;
Each has its trial, each its grace,
Each in life's whole its proper place.
Life has its joinings and its breaks,
But each transition swiftly takes
Us nearer to or farther from
The threshold of our heavenly home.

Years pass away; new crosses come;
Past sorrow is a sort of home,
An exile's home, and only lent
For needful rest in banishment.
It narrows life, and walls it in,
And shuts the door on many a sin;

And thy beauty makes Jesus and Angels more glad:

Saints' mothers have sung when their eldestborn died,

Oh, why, my own saint! is thy mother so sad?

Go, go with thy God, with thy Saviour, my child! Thou art His; I am His; and thy sisters are

His:

But to-day thy fond mother with sorrow is wild!

To think that her son is an angel in bliss!

Oh, forgive me, dear Saviour! on heaven's bright shore

Should I still in my child find a separate joy: While I lie in the light of Thy Face evermore, May I think heaven brighter because of my boy?

THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA.

THE Land beyond the Sea!
When will life's task be o'er?

When shall we reach that soft blue shore,
O'er the dark strait whose billows foam and

roar?

When shall we come to thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea?

The Land beyond the Sea!
How close it often seems,

When flushed with evening's peaceful gleams; And the wistful heart looks o'er the strait, and dreams!

It longs to fly to thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!
Sometimes distinct and near
It grows upon the eye and ear,
And the gulf narrows to a threadlike mere;
We seem half-way to thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!
Sometimes across the strait,
Like a drawbridge to a castle-gate,
The slanting sunbeams lie, and seem to wait
For us to pass to thee,

Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!
Oh, how the lapsing years,

'Mid our not unsubmissive tears,

Have borne, now singly, now in fleets, the biers
Of those we love to thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!

How dark our present home!
By the dull beach and sullen foam
How wearily, how drearily we roam,
With arms outstretched to thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!
When will our toil be done?
Slow-footed years! more swiftly run
Into the gold of that unsetting sun!
Homesick we are for thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!
Why fadest thou in light?

Why art thou better seen toward night?
Dear Land look always plain, look always bright,
That we may gaze on thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!

Sweet is thine endless rest,
But sweeter far that Father's breast
Upon thy shores eternally possest;
For Jesus reigns o'er thee,
Calm Land beyond the Sea!

SAMUEL FERGUSON was born in Belfast, Ire- | land, about 1815. He was educated at the University of Dublin, and in 1838 was called to the Irish bar. He has since resided and practised his profession in Dublin. In 1865 he received the degree of LL. D. from his alma mater. He

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged! 'tis at a white heat now

The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though, on the forge's brow,

The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound;

And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round;

All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare

Some rest upon their sledges here, some work

the windlass there.

The windlass strains the tackle-chains-the black mould heaves below;

And red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe.

It rises, roars, rends all outright-0 Vulcan, what a glow!

'Tis blinding white, 't is blasting bright-the high sun shines not so!

The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery, fearful show!

The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row

Of smiths-that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe!

As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow