For an angel swept on silent wing

To the grave where the dead earth lay; And the Easter dawned as the angel Spring Rolled the rugged stone away.

Then the fields grew green with springing corn,
And some with flowers were bright;
And each day came with an earlier dawn,
And a fuller, sweeter light.

So the year grew older noon by noon,
Till the reapers came one day,
And in the light of a harvest moon
They bore the sheaves away.

But one field lay from the rest apart,

All silent, lone, and dead;

And the rude share ribbed its quivering heart
Till all its life had fled.

And never a blade, and never a flower

On its silent ridges stirred;

The sunshine called, and the passing shower,

It answered never a word.

It seemed as if some curse of ill
Were brooding in the air;

Yet the fallow field did the Master's will,
Though never a blade it bare;

For it turned its furrowed face to heaven,
Catching the light and rain :

It was keeping its Sabbath · one in seven
That it might grow rich again.

And the fallow field had its harvest moon,
Reaping a golden spoil;

And it learned in its ever-brightening noon
That rest for God was toil.

GOOD WORDS.

October 24.

E

I commune with mine own heart.

Ps. lxxvii. 6.

'ACH Christian has had his own dark seasons, to which God sent His own light; and these times of needfulness and of deliverance are known, perhaps, to no one but himself, not even, it may be, to his very dearest. There is an inner world of thought and feeling in which each of us lives, wherein we are profoundly alone; and many a light and shadow may sweep over that little world, many a twilight gloominess may come, and many a heavensent light may scatter it, of which none save ourselves will ever know.

GRAVER THOUGHTS OF A COUNTRY PARSON.

EVENING SOLACE.

THE human heart hath hidden treasures,

In secret kept, in silence sealed,

The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.

And days may pass in gay confusion,

And nights in noisy riot fly,

While lost in fame's or wealth's illusion
The memory of the Past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home;
When in our hearts there seems to languish

A tender grief that is not woe,

And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish

Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

Oh, when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie.

There seems a deeper impulse given

By lonely hour and darkened room
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven
Seeking a life and world to come.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

October 25.

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me. Ps. xlii. 4.

'HE happy look at things on their own level; the

hope is fixed.

thoughts settle

It is never wise to live in the past. There are, indeed, some uses of our past which are helpful, and which bring blessing. We should remember our past lost condition to keep us humble and faithful. We should remember past failures and mistakes, that we may not repeat them. We should remember past mercies, that we may have confidence in new needs or trials in the future. We should remember past comforts, that there may be stars in our sky when night comes again. But while there are these true uses of memory, we should guard against living in the past. We should draw our life's inspirations not from memory, but from hope; not from what is gone, but from what is yet to come. Forgetting the things which are behind, we should reach forward unto those things which are before.

J. R. MILLER.

If our hearts do but keep fresh, we may still love those who are gone, and may still find happiness in loving them. JULIUS C. HARE.

REGRET.

OH! that word regret !

There have been nights and morns when we have sighed, "Let us alone, Regret! We are content

To throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleep

For aye." But it is patient, and it wakes;
It has not learned to cry itself to sleep,
But plaineth on the bed that it is hard.
We did amiss when we did wish it gone
And over: sorrows humanize our race;
Tears are the showers that fertilize this world;

And memory of things precious keepeth warm
The heart that once did fold them.

They are poor
Who have lost nothing; they are poorer far
Who, losing, have forgotten; they most poor
Of all, who lose and wish they might forget.
For life is one, and in its warp and woof
There runs a thread of gold that glitters fair, ·
And sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet
Where there are sombre colors. It is true

That we have wept. But oh! this thread of gold,
We would not have it tarnish; let us turn
Oft and look back upon the wondrous web,
And when it shineth sometimes we shall know
That memory is possession.

JEAN INGELOW.

WHEN I remember something which I had,
But which is gone, and I must do without,
I sometimes wonder how I can be glad,

Even in cowslip time when hedges sprout;
It makes me sigh to think on it, but yet
My days will not be better days should I forget.

When I remember something promised me,
But which I never had, nor can have now,
Because the promiser we no more see

In countries that accord with mortal vow;
When I remember this, I mourn,
- but yet

My happier days are not the days when I forget.

October 26.

And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope. — JOB

xi. 18.

THE

'HE shadow of human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope.

GEORGE S. HILLARD.

HOPE is like the sun, which, as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

SMILES.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN.

THOU blossom bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night, —

Thou comest not when violets lean

-

O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines in purple drest

Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue, blue as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

October 27.

For so He giveth His beloved sleep. — Ps. cxxvii. 2.

REST is the deepest want in the soul of man.

If you

take off covering after covering of the nature which wraps him round, till you come to the central heart of hearts, deep lodged there you find the requirement of repose. All men do not desire pleasure; all men do not crave intellectual food; but all men long for rest. It is this need which sometimes makes the quiet of the grave an object of such deep desire. "There the weary are at rest.' And it is this which, consciously or