If with these we right no wrong

What avails it to be strong?

we strengthen not the weak, raise not the bowed again,

We have lived our life in vain.

To the giver shall be given—

If thou wouldst walk in light

Make other spirits bright;

Who, seeking for himself alone, ever entered heaven? In blessing we are blest:

In labor find our rest.

If we bend not to the world's work, heart, and hand, and brain,

We have lived our life in vain.

Selfishness is utter loss;

Life's most perfect joy and good

Ah! how few have understood !

Only One hath proved it fully, and He died upon the

cross,

Taking on Himself the curse

So to bless a universe.

If we follow not His footsteps through the pathway straight and plain,

We have lived our life in vain.

MY MOTHER.

HE stands upon the border land,

SHE

Where heaven and earth unite;

Her soul projects itself beyond
The avenues of sight.

And dwelling in the realms that ne'er
Are reached by mortal ken,

She seems already crowned a saint

At three-score years and ten.

Her motherhood is written o'er
Her face in fairest lines;
Her tender heart asserts itself
By most familiar signs.

By patient steps, through thorny ways,
Through sorrow and through strife,
She reached the Pisgah-height of time.
The boundary of life.

Far down the valley of the past,
She sees where fond hopes bloomed,
And marks the many monuments
Wherein they lie entombed.

grown,

But o'er the graves the grass has
And Love its balm has given,
Since every step the wanderer took,
But led her nearer Heaven.

Her children fill life's vacancies;
She lives for them alone;

She has no selfish thoughts or aims,
No sorrows of her own.

O golden chain, that binds so close

These human hearts, when riven, The shortened links but draw us up To happiness and Heaven!

Three-score and ten! O failing feet
That spurn the dust of time,
How bright the radiance that illumes
The pathway that ye climb!
How dark the shadow that invades
The quiet home and hearth,

When through the gateway ye have passed,
And are no more of earth!

Dear mother, when I think of thee

And thy declining years,

I have no songs to offer thee,

No tribute but my tears.

But though my harp to minor strains

Of melody is strung,

This heart of mine knows nought of time,

There thou art always young.

Sin of not loving Thee,

Sin of not trusting Thee,
Infinite sin.

Lord, I confess to Thee
Sadly my sin;

All I am tell I Thee,

All I have been.

Purge Thou my sin away,
Wash Thou my soul this day,
Lord, make me clean.

Faithful and just art Thou,
Forgiving all;

Loving and kind art Thou
When poor ones call;

Lord, let the cleansing blood,
Blood of the Lamb of God,

Pass o'er my soul.

Then all is peace and light

This soul within ;

Thus shall I walk with Thee,

The loved unseen.

Leaning on Thee, my God,

Guiding along the road,

Nothing between.

BONAR.

THE BEGGAR AND THE KING.

NE summer afternoon, within his palace,
The king sits nodding on his throne of state;
And, drinking of the same care-freeing chalice,
All round about him drowsy courtiers wait.
Without the palace-gate, the sun's rays pouring
Full down upon his unprotected head,
A beggar lies, whom, spite of his imploring,

The liveried slaves have driven from his shed;
And gentle sleep, with silent, soothing fingers,
Wraps king and beggar in its soft repose;
And as its presence in the palace lingers,

The eyes of courtiers, too, in slumber close.
All slept, and o'er the minds of each came stealing
The dim and airy fabric of a dream;
And all the chambers of the mental feeling,
Straightway with many floating fancies teem.

The king lived o'er again his days of glory;
Once more he heard his subjects' loud acclaim;
Again he trod the field of battle gory,

And purchased, by ten thousand deaths, his name; He heard again the trumpet's clangor calling;

He heard the shouts of foeman and of friend; And, louder than the death-groans of the falling,

He heard the war-cries' ringing thunders blend; He dreamed of plundered towns and pillaged cities, Of slaughtered innocence, whose blood he'd spilt; He heard his minstrels sing their fulsome ditties, In praise of him whose soul was steeped in guilt;