... "They that turn many to righteousness,
shall shine as the stars forever and ever." ...


They have left their homes and kindred, they are in the strangers' land,
The voice of God revealed his will; His will was their command.
They crossed the pathless main, nor feared the sadly treacherous wave,
For is not He in whom they trust omnipotent to save?

But did no dark forebodings come? Was all at peace within?
Did prompt obedience' sure reward e'en with the toil begin?
Ah no! for nature's fond appeal would in that hour be heard;
Maternity's deep spring of love within the heart was stirred.
Perhaps some little cherub form, that it was joy to see,
Would climb no more, with sunny smile, its happy parent's knee;
Perhaps some gentle household voice, that sighed "farewel...

Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way,
And faint before the truth.

It is the only road
Unto the realms of joy;
But he who seeks that blest abode
Must all his powers employ.

Bright hopes and pure delight
Upon his course may beam,
And there, amid the sternest heights,
The sweetest flowerets gleam.

On all her breezes borne,
Earth yields no scents like those;
But he that dares not gasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.

Arm--arm thee for the fight!
Cast useless loads away;
Watch through the darkest hours of night;
Toil through the hottest day.

Crush pride into the dust,
Or thou must needs be slack;
And trample down rebellious lust,
Or it will h...

The flowers that bloom in sun and shade
And glitter in the dew,
The flowers must fade.
The birds that build their nest and sing
When lovely spring is new,
Must soon take wing.

The sun that rises in his strength
To wake and warm the world,
Must set at length.
The sea that overflows the shore
With billows frothed and curled,
Must ebb once more.

All come and go, all wax and wane,
O Lord, save only Thou
Who dost remain
The Same to all eternity.
All things which fail us now
We trust to Thee.

I. Thanksgiving.

Star, on thy Heaven-returning way,
Our message of thanksgiving bear;
To Him who answered with thy ray
The priestless Gentiles’ trembling prayer.

When songs of revel shook the roof,
God, Thou didst cheer the joyless course,
Where we, like Vashti, walked aloof,
Braving the world’s unjust divorce.

How rate we now all griefs and scorn
That filled our youth with bitterness!
We had not known the Christ is born
But that we sought for One to bless!

II. Prayer.

Fence Thou Thy Child, O Merciful,
When hate shall cavil at His worth;
When underlings like Haman rule
Hold Thou the golden sceptre forth.

When envy round Thy Precious One
Its tongues of scorching flame hath curled,
Unwasted let His virtue r...

I stand to-day on higher ground
Than ever reached before,
Yet from this summit I have found,
Outlined full many more,
Which seem to pierce the vaulted sky,
And prove my effort vain
But God will set my feet on high,
Thro' grace I shall attain.

Yet higher still my ideal stands,
Its peak but dimly seen,
But hope impels, and love commands,
And faith discerns its sheen;
And when I reach its shining height
Heaven's gate will open wide;
I'll see the beatific sight,
And rest at Jesus' side.

(Beareth all things. - 1 Cor. xiii. 7.)

Gently I took that which ungently came,
And without scorn forgave: Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark
Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark.
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,
Fear that, the spark self-kindled from within,
Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,
Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,
And soon the ventilated spirit finds
Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,
A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side,
Think it God's message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it; thine the gains
Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

Though every nerve be strained
To fine accomplishment,
Full oft the life fall spent
Before the prize is gained.
And, in our discontent
At waste so evident,
In doubt and vast discouragement
We wonder what is meant.
But, tracing back, we find
A Power that held the ways--
A Mighty Hand, a Master Mind,
That all the troubled course defined
And overruled the days.
Some call it Fate; some--Chance;
Some--Giant Circumstance;
And some, upreaching to the sense
Of God within the circumstance,
Do call it--Providence!

Come back again, my olden heart!
Ah, fickle spirit and untrue,
I bade the only guide depart
Whose faithfulness I surely knew:
I said, my heart is all too soft;
He who would climb and soar aloft
Must needs keep ever at his side
The tonic of a wholesome pride.

Come back again, my olden heart!
Alas, I called not then for thee;
I called for Courage, and apart
From Pride if Courage could not be,
Then welcome, Pride! and I shall find
In thee a power to lift the mind
This low and grovelling joy above
’Tis but the proud can truly love.

Come back again, my olden heart!
With incrustations of the years
Uncased as yet, as then thou wert,
Full-filled with shame and coward fears
Wherewith amidst a jostling throng
Of deeds, that each and ...

O lovely chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?
You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.
Many a thing you did to save me,
Many a holy gift you gave me,
Music and friends and happy love
More than my dearest dreaming of;
And now in this wide twilight hour
With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower,
In a humble mood I bless
Your wisdom and your waywardness.
You brought me even here, where I
Live on a hill against the sky
And look on mountains and the sea
And a thin white moon in the pepper tree.

Did sweeter Sounds adorn my flowing Tongue,
Than ever Man pronounc'd, or Angel sung:
Had I all Knowledge, Human and Divine,
That Thought can reach, or Science can define;
And had I Pow'r to give that Knowledge Birth,
In all the Speeches of the babbling Earth:
DidShadrach's Zeal my glowing Breast inspire,
To weary Tortures, and rejoice in Fire:
Or had I Faith like That whichIsrael saw,
WhenMoses gave them Miracles, and Law:

Yet, graciousCharity, indulgent Guest,
Were not Thy Pow'r exerted in my Breast;
Those Speeches would send up unheeded Pray'r:
That Scorn of Life would be but wild Despair:
A Tymbal's Sound were better than my Voice:
My Faith were Form: my Eloquence were Noise.
Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind,
Softens the high, and rears the ab...

Let us peer forward through the dusk of years
    And force the silent future to reveal
    Her store of garnered joys; we may not kneel
For ever, and entreat our bliss with tears.
    Somewhere on this drear earth the sunshine lies,
    Somewhere the air breathes Heaven-blown harmonies.

Some day when you and I have fully learned
    Our waiting-lesson, wondering, hand in hand
    We shall gaze out upon an unknown land,
Our thoughts and our desires forever turned
    From our old griefs, as swallows, home warding,
    Sweep ever southward with unwearied wing.

We shall fare forth, comrades for evermore.
    Though the ill-omened bird Time loves to bear
    Has brushed this cheek and left an impress there
I shall be fierce and dauntless as of yore,
 ...

God, as He's potent, so He's likewise known
To give us more than hope can fix upon.

Where is the heart that would not give
    Years of drowsy days and nights,
One little hour, like this, to live--
    Full, to the brim, of life's delights?
        Look, look around,
        This fairy ground,
    With love-lights glittering o'er;
        While cups that shine
        With freight divine
    Go coasting round its shore.

Hope is the dupe of future hours,
    Memory lives in those gone by;
Neither can see the moment's flowers
    Springing up fresh beneath the eye,
        Wouldst thou, or thou,
        Forego what's now,
    For all that Hope may say?
        No--Joy's reply,
        From every eye,
    Is, "Live we while we may,"

!Full Chorus.
To Him Who bade the Heavens abide, yet cease not from their motion,
To Him Who tames the moonstruck tide twice a day round Ocean,
Let His Names be magnified in all poor folks’ devotion!

Powers and Gifts.
Not for Prophecies or Powers, Visions, Gifts, or Graces,
But the unregardful hours that grind us in our places
With the burden on our backs, the weather in our faces.

Toils.
Not for any Miracle of easy Loaves and Fishes,
But for doing, ’gainst our will, work against our wishes,
Such as finding food to fill daily-emptied dishes.

Glories.
Not for Voices, Harps or Wings or rapt illumination,
But the grosser Self that springs of use and occupation,
Unto which the Spirit clings as her last salvation.

Powers, Glories, Toils, and...

The elder folks shook hands at last,
Down seat by seat the signal passed.
To simple ways like ours unused,
Half solemnized and half amused,
With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest
His sense of glad relief expressed.
Outside, the hills lay warm in sun;
The cattle in the meadow-run
Stood half-leg deep; a single bird
The green repose above us stirred.
"What part or lot have you," he said,
"In these dull rites of drowsy-head?
Is silence worship? Seek it where
It soothes with dreams the summer air,
Not in this close and rude-benched hall,
But where soft lights and shadows fall,
And all the slow, sleep-walking hours
Glide soundless over grass and flowers!
From time and place and form apart,
Its holy ground the human heart,
Nor ritual-bound nor...

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
    Can circumvent or hinder or control
    The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
All things give way before it, soon or late.
    What obstacle can stay the mighty force
    Of the sea-seeking river in its course,
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.
Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate
    Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,
    Whose slightest action or inaction serves
The one great aim.
        Why, even Death stands still,
And waits an hour sometimes for such a will.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I 've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Scene - A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.

Katharine. What are the words?

Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore; here he comes. Kate has a favour to ask of you, Sir; it is that you will repeat the ballad [Believe me if all those endearing young charms. - EHC's ? note] that Mr. ____ sang so sweetly.
Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies; but I do not recollect the words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this:

Love would remain the same if true,
When we were neither young nor new;
Yea, and in all within the will that came,
By the same proofs would show itself the same.

Eliza. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my mother admired so much? It begins with something about two v...