Why clasp woe's hand so tightly? Why sigh o'er blossoms dead? Why cling to forms unsightly? Why not seek joy, instead?

Trip lightly over sorrow;

Though all the day be dark,
The sun may shine to-morrow,
And gayly sing the lark;
Fair hopes have not departed,
Though roses may have fled;
Then never be down-hearted,
But look for joy instead.

Trip lightly over sadness,

Stand not to rail at doom'; We've pearls to string, of gladness, On this side of the tomb : While stars are nightly shining, And the heaven is overhead, Encourage not repining,

But look for joy instead.

835. DESPONDENCY. Cure for

THE recollection of one upward hour
Hath more in it to tranquillize and cheer
The darkness of despondency, than years
Of gaiety and pleasure.-Percival.

There's not a star the heaven can show,
There's not a cottage hearth below,

But feeds with solace kind the willing soul:
Men love us, or they need our love;
Freely they own, or heedless prove

The curse of lawless hearts, the joy of self-control.

Then rouse thee from desponding sleep,
Nor by the wayside lingering weep,

Nor fear to seek Him farther in the wild,
Whose love can turn earth's worst and least
Into a conqueror's royal feast;

Thou wilt not be untrue, thou shalt not be beguiled.

Keble.

838. DESPONDENCY. Philosophy of
BUT as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no farther go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;

To me that morning did it happen so;
And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness, and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor
could name.

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perish'd in his pride;

Of him who walk'd in glory and in joy,

Following his plough, along the mountain-side : By our own spirits we are deified:

We poets in our youth begin in gladness;

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.- -Wordsworth.

Let not my peace be broken when the wrong
Conquers the right; but let me still wait on;
The day of right is coming, late, but long,——

Long right beneath the sway of the all-righteous
One.

When truth is overborne and error reigns,

When clamour lords it over patient love,

Give the brave calmness which from wrath refrains, Yet from the steadfast course declines one foot to move.

When love no refuge finds but silent faith,

When meekness fain would hide its heavy head, When trustful truth, shunning the words of wrath, Waits for the day of right, so long, so long delay'd;

Beneath the load of crosses and of cares;

Of thwarted plans, of rude and spiteful words; Oh, bear me up, when this weak flesh despairs, And the one arm which faith can lean on is the Lord's.-Bonar.

My Saviour takes me in,

And I am His at last.-Hunter.

841. DESPONDENT. Comfort for the

How weary and how worthless this life at times appears!

What days of heavy musings, what hours of bitter tears!

How dark the storm-clouds gather across the wintry skies!

How desolate and cheerless the path before us lies!

And yet these days of dreariness are sent us from above,

They do not come in anger, but in faithfulness and love ;

They come to teach us lessons which bright ones could not yield;

And to leave us blest and thankful when their purpose is fulfill'd.

They come to draw us nearer our Father and our God,

More earnestly to seek His face, and listen to His word,

And to feel, if now around us a desert land we see, Without the star of promise, what would its darkness be?

They come to lay us lowly and humbled in the dust, All self-deception swept away, all creature-hope and trust,

Our helplessness, our vileness, our guilt to make us

own,

And flee for hope and refuge to Jesus Christ alone.

They come to break the fetters, which here detain us fast,

And force our long-reluctant hearts to rise to heaven

at last,

And brighten ev'ry prospect of that eternal home, Where grief, and disappointment, and fear can never

come.

Then turn not in despondence, poor weary heart,

away,

But meekly journey onwards, through the dark and cloudy day;

E'en now the bow of promise is above thee shining bright,

And soon a joyful morning shall dissipate the night.

Thy God hath not forgot thee, and when He sees it best,

Will lead thee into sunshine, will give thee hours of rest;

I've nursed for thee a zeal whose glow 'Has fann'd all day my soul to flame; I felt the effluent rush to write Words that Thy Spirit should indite; And when I named Thy holy Name The cloven inspiration came,

As with a pentecostal might.

'I had no other thought to sing

Than for Thy glory; since it grew The grandest thing a soul can do To strain its strength and sweep its wing, That so the grace of song might bring

Some captured soul to praise Thee too. 'That rapture past, I plann'd a deed

Of costly effort for Thy sake,

In which I charged that self should take No slightest share, nor flesh have heed, Nor shrinking will have let to plead, Nor heart betray an inward ache.

Not one

'And now the day within whose life
I set my doing is dead and done,
And all my ends are miss'd.
Of those with stirrings of whose strife
My inner truest, best was rife

And restless hath been e'en begun.'
As thus I moan'd my self-complaint,
Across the midnight seem'd to loom
A vision, and athwart the gloom
A whisper fell, so sweet and faint,
That I look'd up with strange constraint,
And lo! a brightness swam the room.

I sank o'erawed; and as I lay

With downward face I heard a voice
Float clear above. It said: 'Rejoice!

Thy dead day wept for lives-a day
Breathing with action, though it may

Have fail'd to grant thy heart its choice.

'Thy work undone I take as though

Fill'd to completion, and the strain
That throbs unsung within thy brain
I hear in all its underflow,
And know, as thou canst never know,
The mystic music born of pain.
"Twas I who bade the hindrance stir

Thy soul from singing; I who laid
My hand upon thy hands and stay'd
Their chosen purpose; while to her
Who suffer'd, as a minister,

I sent thee with that loving aid.

'And inasmuch as thou hast brought
The cup of water, deem'd so small;
And inasmuch as at my call
Thou didst the work thou hadst not sought,
As doubled deeds, wrought and unwrought,
I, needing none, accept them all.'

Margaret J. Preston.

843. DESTINY. Hand of

THE king was on his throne, the satraps throng'd the hall:

A thousand bright lamps shone o'er that high festival. A thousand cups of gold, in Judah deem'd divine; Jehovah's vessels hold the godless heathen's wine! In that same hour and hall, the fingers of a hand Came forth against the wall, and wrote as if on sand; The fingers of a man, a solitary hand,

Along the letters ran and traced them like a wand. The monarch saw and shook, and bade no more rejoice;

All bloodless wax'd his look, and tremulous his voice: 'Let the men of lore appear, the wisest of the earth, And expound the words of fear which mar our royal mirth.'-Byron.

844. DESTINY. Human

WHATE'ER man's destiny may be,
His mind is changed accordingly:
With it his heart in union blends,
And thus come God's appointed ends.
Oriental, tr. by W. R. Alger.

845. DESTRUCTION. Dream of

I HAD a dream. A narrow bridge-way led Across a mighty gulf, in whose deep bosom, Down, down a frightful depth, on pointed rocks, The mangled carcasses of men were strew'd

On his dark throne, 'mid one vast sea of blood!
I look'd-and lo! millions of moving men
Press'd madly on the space which none could tread
In safety without care-thousands and thousands fell
Each moment in th' abyss through heedlessness,
To rise no more for ever! Still there came
Thousands and thousands more—and mark'd the fall
Of friends and dear companions, and e'en wept,
But took no better heed, and fell themselves
In the same ruin. Some who came were blind,
And some were maim'd, and faint, and tottering;
And some seem'd urged by very madness on ;
And yet 'twas said that all were rational
Children of earth-and journeying to the clime
Of cloudless skies and peaceful scenes, beyond
That gulf, o'er which there was but this one passage.
I look'd again—and saw that there were those
Amid the crowd who pointed out the danger,
And warn'd and warn'd their fellows to beware,
Offer'd to lead the blind, assist the maim'd,
And strove to win e'en madness back to reason.
But these were hiss'd at, shunn'd, despised as men
Of little wisdom, or ignoble souls;

Yet these went cautious on, and all escaped
The certain fate of their despisers.

I woke it was a dream. But I have thought,
Oft thought, how like this scene is that we see
Daily around, in this our pilgrimage-
How the world runs to ruin, all are bound
O'er the strait way that leads to happy climes
Beyond the shores of time. Yet who can count
The countless millions of immortal souls
Which perish-fall, for ever, in the abyss
Of endless death, even through very folly,
In wending o'er the narrow bridge of life!

846. DETERMINATION. Firm

LET come what will, I mean to bear it out,
And either live with glorious victory
Or die with fame, renown'd in chivalry.
He is not worthy of the honeycomb

That shuns the hive because the bees have stings.

Shakespeare.

847. DETERMINATION. Penitential

I'LL go to Jesus, though my sin

Like mountains round me close;

I know His courts, I'll enter in,

Whatever may oppose.

Prostrate I'll lie before His throne,
And there my guilt confess;
I'll tell Him I'm a wretch undone
Without His sov'reign grace.

THE spring-tide hour Brings leaf and flower With songs of life and love; And many a lay Wears out the day In many a leafy grove.

Bird, flower, and tree

Seem to agree

Their choicest gifts to bring;
But this poor heart
Bears not its part,
In it there is no spring.

Dews fall apace,
The dews of grace,
Upon this soul of sin;
And love Divine
Delight to shine
Upon the waste within :
Yet, year by year,
Fruits, flowers, appear,
And birds their praises sing;
But this poor
heart

Bears not its part,

Its winter has no spring.

Lord, let Thy love, Fresh from above, Soft as the south wind blow; Call forth its bloom, Wake its perfume,

And bid its spices flow !

And when Thy voice Makes earth rejoice, And the hills laugh and sing, Lord! make this heart

To bear its part,

And join the praise of spring!-Monsell.

YE quietists in homage to the skies!
Serene! of soft address! who mildly make
An unobtrusive tender of your hearts,
Abhorring violence! who halt, indeed,

But for the blessing wrestle not with Heaven!
Think you my song too turbulent, too warm?
Are passions, then, the Pagans of the soul?
Reason alone baptized? alone ordain'd

To touch things sacred? Oh for warmer still!
Guilt chills my zeal, and age benumbs my powers:
Oh for an humbler heart and prouder song!
Thou, my much-injured theme! with that soft eye
Which melted o'er doom'd Salem, deign to look
Compassion to the coldness of my breast,
And pardon to the winter in my strain.

O ye cold-hearted, frozen formalists!

On such a theme 'tis impious to be calm;
Passion is reason, transport temper here.

Shall Heaven, which gave us ardour, and has shown
Her own for man so strongly, not disdain
The smooth emollients in theology
Recumbent virtue's downy doctors preach,
That prose of piety, a lukewarm praise?
Rise odours sweet from incense uninflamed?
Devotion, when lukewarm, is undevout;
But when it glows, its heat is struck to heaven :
To human hearts her golden harps are strung;
High Heaven's orchestra chants Amen to man.

IF we with earnest efforts could succeed

To make our life one long connected prayer, As lives of some perhaps have been and are, If never leaving Thee, we had no need Our wandering spirits back again to lead Into Thy presence, but continued there, Like angels standing on the highest stair Of the sapphire throne, this were to pray indeed. But if distractions manifold prevail, And if in this we must confess we fail, Grant us to keep at least a prompt desire, Continual readiness for prayer or praise,

SAVE me alike from foolish pride,

Or impious discontent,

At aught Thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught Thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,

That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,

Since quicken'd by Thy breath; Oh, lead me wheresoe'er I go,

Through this day's life or death! This day be bread and peace my lot; All else beneath the sun,

Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not,
And let Thy will be done.

To Thee, whose temple is all space,
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies!
One chorus let all Being raise!
All Nature's incense rise!-Pope.

857. DEVOTION. Spiritual

THE woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarolle;