The Children at the Golden Gates.

LITTLE travellers Zionward

Each one entering into rest In the kingdom of your Lord,

In the mansions of the blest;
There, to welcome, Jesus waits,

Gives the crowns his followers win.
Lift your heads, ye golden gates,
Let the little travellers in!

Who are they whose little feet,
Pacing life's dark journey through,
Now have reached that heavenly seat
They had ever kept in view?

"I from Greenland's frozen land;"
"I from India's sultry plain ;"
"I from Afric's barren sand;"
"I from islands of the main."

"All our earthly journey past,
Every tear and pain gone by,
Here together met at last

At the portals of the sky:
Each the welcome 'COME' awaits,
Conquerors over death and sin!"
Lift your heads, ye golden gates,
Let the little travellers in!

JAS. EDMENSTON.

The Good Shepherd.

WHEN on my ear your loss was knelled,
And tender sympathy upburst,
A little rill from memory swelled,
Which once had soothed my bitter thirst.

And I was fain to bear to you

Some portion of its mild relief,

That it might be as healing dew,

To steal some fever from your grief.

After our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of death,
Like a long twilight, haunting lay,

And friends came round with us to weep
Her little spirit's swift remove,

This story of the Alpine sheep
Was told to us by one we love :

"They in the valley's sheltering care

Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, And when the sod grows brown and bare, The Shepherd strives to make them climb

"To airy shelves of pasture green,

That hang along the mountain's side, Where grass and flowers together lean,

And down through mists the sunbeams slide;

"But naught can tempt the timid things
The steep and rugged path to try,
Though sweet the Shepherd calls and sings,
And seared below the pastures lie,

"Till in his arms the lambs he takes,
Along the dizzy verge to go;
Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on o'er rock and snow.

"And in those pastures lifted fair,

More dewy soft than lowland mead,
The Shepherd drops his tender care,
And sheep and lambs together feed."

This parable, by Nature breathed,
Blew on me as the south wind free
O'er frozen brooks, that float, unsheathed
From icy thraldom, to the sea.

A blissful vision through the night

Would all my happy senses sway, Of the Good Shepherd on the height, Or climbing up the stony way,

Holding our little lamb asleep;

And like the burden of the sea Sounded that voice along the deep, Saying, "Arise and follow me."

MARIA LOWELL.

Resignation.

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;

Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead-the child of our affection

But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her

For when, with raptures wild,

In our embraces we again enfold her,

She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,—