Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

O God, our Help in ages past,
Our Hope for years to come,

Be Thou our Guard while life shall last,
And our Eternal Home.

-Isaac Watts

Oh, If They Only Knew!

SOM

OME people think I think I'm good.
Oh, if they only understood!

Could they but draw aside the screen
Of shielding clay that stands between,
And see the penitent within

That craves so oft release from sin;

If some kind angel could reveal
The sense of guilt and shame I feel
Because my heart will ope to things
Whose very entrance blights and stings;
Oh, if they only, only knew

The grace it takes to just ring true!

If they could understand my need,
And hear what I confess and plead,
And know how fully I depend
Upon my precious Lord and Friend;

I

I wonder, would they call such dress
The mantle of self-righteousness?

-Edith L. Mapes

The Bird with a Broken Wing

WALKED through the woodland meadows,
Where sweet the thrushes sing,

And found on a bed of mosses

A bird with a broken wing.

I healed its wound, and each morning
It sang its old sweet strain;
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soared as high again.

I found a young life broken
By sin's seductive art;

And, touched with a Christlike pity,
I took him to my heart.
He lived with a noble purpose,
And struggled not in vain;
But the life that sin had stricken
Never soared as high again.

But the bird with a broken pinion
Kept another from the snare,
And the life that sin had stricken
Raised another from despair.
Each loss has its compensation,
There is healing for every pain;

But the bird with a broken pinion

Never soars as high again.

-Hezekiah Butterworth

THE

The Fool's Prayer

HE royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: “O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

""Tis not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end; These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say-
Who knows how grandly it had rung?

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all; But for our blunders-oh, in shame Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

-Edward R. Sill

CONVERSATION

Our Lips and Ears

IF you your lips would keep from slips,

Five things observe with care:

Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how and when and where.

If you your ears would save from jeers,
These things keep meekly hid:

Myself and I, and mine and my,
And how I do and did.

-Anon.

THE COUNTRY

Thank God for the Country!

THANK

NK God for the country, the vast stretch of land, Sun-kissed and by Heaven's sweet breath ever fanned;

Blue skies overlooking the grass and the trees,
The singing of birds and the humming of bees.

"Twas man made the skyscrapers, towering so high,
That shut out the sunshine from all who pass by;
The fields and green pastures, the brooks and the flowers,
Were fashioned alike by omnipotent powers.