Laid the long task of patient months aside,
The simple story of the gospels told
In lettering of crimson and of gold;
On its rich pages streamed the setting sun,
And now his life waned and his work was done.
He pushed away the heavy oaken door,
And stood within the sunset calm once more.
Above the narrowing round of life he knew
A sense of beauty and of wonder grew.
The text his art had copied, “God is Love,”
Came to him like the home-returning dove.
As the wind whistled in the bearded grain;
The tender words made music in his brain;
The green leaves whispered of it, everywhere
He read it on the blue scroll of the air,
As if more clearly and in fairer guise
The Lord Himself inscribed it for men’s eyes!
_Christian at Work._
* * * * *
Older than all preached gospels was this unpreached, inarticulate,
but ineradicable, for-ever-enduring gospel: work, and therein have
well-being. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven, lies there not, in the
innermost heart of thee, a spirit of active method, a force for work;—and
burns like a painfully smouldering fire, giving thee no rest till thou
unfold it, till thou write it down in beneficent facts around thee?
What is immethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable,
obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou findest disorder, there
is thy eternal enemy: attack him swiftly, subdue him; make order of
him, the subject not of chaos, but of intelligence, divinity, and thee!
The thistle that grows in thy path, dig it out that a blade of useful
grass, a drop of nourishing milk, may grow there instead. The waste
cotton-shrub, gather its waste white down, spin it, weave it; that, in
place of idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the naked skin of man
be covered.—THOMAS CARLYLE.
THE KING’S BELL.
EBEN E. REXFORD.
“No perfect day has ever come to me,”
An old man said;
“A perfect day for us can never be
Till we are dead.”
The young king heard him, and he turned away
In earnest thought.
Did men ne’er find on earth the perfect day
For which they sought?
A day all free from care?—so running o’er
With life’s delight
That there seemed room or wish for nothing more
From dawn to night?
“It _must_ be that such days have come to man,”
The young king said.
“Go search—find one who found them—if you can!”
Ah, wise gray head!
“I trust that some time such a day will come
To even me,”
The king said. But the old man’s lips were dumb—
A doubter he.
“That you, and those about you all may know
My perfect day,
A bell shall ring out when the sun is low,
And men shall say—
“‘Behold! this day has been unto the king
A day replete
With happiness. It lacked not anything—
A day most sweet!’”
In a high tower, ere night, the passers saw
A mighty bell,
The tidings of a day without a flaw
Some time to tell.
The bell hung silent in its lofty tower,
Days came and went;
Each summer brought its sunshine and its flower,
Its old content;
But not the happy day he hoped to see.
“But soon or late
The day of days,” he said, “will come to me.
I trust—and wait.”
The years, like leaves upon a restless stream,
Were swept away,
And in the king’s dark hair began to gleam
Bright threads of gray.
Men, passing by, looked upward to the bell,
And smiling said,
“Delay not of the happy time to tell
Till we are dead.”
But they grew old and died. And silent still
The great bell hung;
And the good king, bowed down with age, fell ill
His cares among.
At dusk, one day, with dazed brain, from his room
He slowly crept
Up rattling tower-steps, in dust and gloom,
While watchers slept.
Above the city broke the great bell’s voice,
Silent so long.
“Behold the king’s most happy day! Rejoice!”
It told the throng.
Filled with strange awe, the long night passed away.
At morn men said,
“At last the king has found his happy day—
The king is dead!”
NOBLESSE OBLIGE.
CARLOTTA PERRY.
If I am weak and you are strong,
Why then, why then,
To you the braver deeds belong;
And so, again,
If you have gifts and I have none,
If I have shade and you have sun,
’Tis yours with freer hand to give,
’Tis yours with truer grace to live,
Than I, who giftless, sunless, stand,
With barren life and hand.
We do not ask the little brook
To turn the wheel;
Unto the larger stream we look.
The strength of steel
We do not ask from silken bands,
Nor heart of oak in willow wands;
We do not ask the wren to go
Up to the heights the eagles know;
Nor yet expect the lark’s clear note
From out the dove’s dumb throat.
’Tis wisdom’s law, the perfect code,
By love inspired;
Of him on whom much is bestowed
Is much required.
The tuneful throat is bid to sing,
The oak must reign the forest’s king;
The rushing stream the wheel must move,
The beaten steel its strength must prove.
’Tis given unto the eagle’s eyes
To face the midday skies.
USES OF ADVERSITY.
If none were sick and none were sad,
What service could we render?
I think if we were always glad,
We scarcely could be tender.
Did our beloved never need
Our patient ministration,
Earth would grow cold, and miss, indeed,
Its sweetest consolation.
If sorrow never claimed our heart,
And every wish were granted,
Patience would die and hope depart,
Life would be disenchanted.
THE VALUE OF LITERATURE.
The literature of the world is in a very deep sense the direct and most
beautiful outcome of its life. Men have had but a partial success in
shaping their external life, but their ideals, their aspirations, their
highest thoughts of themselves are to be found in books. It is only as
we unite the actual which we find in its history with the ideal which we
find in its literature, that we are able to get any true understanding
of an age. The value and vitality of great books lie not so much in
their art as in the fidelity and completeness with which they represent
human life. Literature is, in a word, the best that has been thought or
dreamed in the world, and must therefore remain to the very end of time
the most fascinating and the most fruitful study to which men can give
themselves.—HAMILTON W. MABIE.
TRUE HEROISM.
Let others write of battles fought
On bloody, ghastly fields,
Where honors greet the man who wins,
And death the man who yields;
But I will write of him who fights
And vanquishes his sins,
Who struggles on through weary years
Against himself and wins.
He is a hero, stanch and brave,
Who fights an unseen foe,
And puts at last beneath his feet
His passions base and low;
Who stands erect in manhood’s might
Undaunted, undismayed—
The bravest man that drew a sword
In foray or in raid.
It calls for something more than brawn
Or muscle, to overcome
An enemy who marcheth not
With banner, plume, and drum—
A foe, forever lurking nigh,
With silent, stealthy tread,
Forever near your board by day,
And night beside your bed.
All honor, then, to that brave heart,
Though poor or rich he be,
Who struggles with his baser part—
Who conquers and is free!
He may not wear a hero’s crown,
Nor fill a hero’s grave;
But truth will place his name among
The bravest of the brave.
THE BURIAL OF THE OLD FLAG.
MARY A. BARR.
There is not in all the north countrie,
Nor yet on the Humber line,
A town with a prouder record than
Newcastle-upon-the-Tyne.
Roman eagles have kept its walls;
Saxon, and Dane, and Scot
Have left the glamour of noble deeds,
With their names, on this fair spot.
From the reign of William Rufus,
The monarchs of every line
Had a grace for loyal Newcastle,
The city upon the Tyne.
By the Nuns’ Gate, and up Pilgrim Street,
What pageants have held their way!
But in seventeen hundred and sixty-three,
One lovely morn in May,
There was a sight in bonnie Newcastle!
Oh, that I had been there!
To hear the call of the trumpeters
Thrilling the clear spring air,
To hear the roar of the cannon,
And the drummer’s gathering beat,
And the eager hum of the multitudes
Waiting upon the street.
Just at noon was a tender hush,
And a funeral march was heard;
With arms reversed and colors tied
Came the men of the Twenty-third.
And Lennox, their noble leader, bore
The shreds of a faded flag,
The battle-flag of the regiment,
Shot to a glorious rag;
Shot into shreds upon its staff,
Torn in a hundred fights,
From the torrid plains of India
To the cold Canadian heights.
There was not an inch of bunting left;
How could it float again
Over the faithful regiment
It never had led in vain?
And oh, the hands that had carried it!
It was not cloth and wood:
It stood for a century’s heroes,
And was crimson with their blood;
It stood for a century’s comrades.
They could not cast it away,
And so with a soldier’s honors
They were burying it that day.
In the famous old North Humber fort,
Where the Roman legions trod,
With the roar of cannon and roll of drums
They laid it under the sod.
But it wasn’t a tattered flag alone
They buried with tender pride;
It was every faithful companion
That under the flag had died.
It was honor, courage, and loyalty
That thrilled that mighty throng
Standing bare-headed and silent as
The old flag passed along.
So when the grasses had covered it
There was a joyful strain;
And the soldiers, stirred to a noble thought,
Marched proudly home again.
The citizens went to their shops once more,
The collier went to his mine;
The shepherd went to the broomy hills,
And the sailor to the Tyne;
But men and women and children felt
That it had been well to be
Just for an hour or two face to face
With honor and loyalty.
THE OLD STONE BASIN.
SUSAN COOLIDGE.
In the heart of the busy city,
In the scorching noontide heat,
A sound of bubbling water
Falls on the din of the street.
It falls in a gray stone basin,
And over the cool wet brink
The heads of thirsty horses
Each moment are stretched to drink.
And peeping between the crowding heads
As the horses come and go,
“The Gift of Three Little Sisters”
Is read on the stone below.
Ah, beasts are not taught letters,
They know no alphabet;
And never a horse in all these years
Has read the words; and yet
I think that each toil-worn creature
Who stops to drink by the way,
His thanks in his own dumb fashion
To the sisters small must pay.
Years have gone by since busy hands
Wrought at the basin’s stone;
The kindly little sisters
Are all to women grown.
I do not know their home or fates,
Or the name they bear to men,
But this sweetness of their gracious deed
Is just as fresh as then.
And all life long, and after life,
They must the happier be,
For the cup of water given by them
When they were children three.
BESIDE THE RAILWAY TRACK.
On its straight iron pathway the long train was rushing,
With its noise, and its smoke, and its great human load;
And I saw a wild rose that in beauty was blushing,
Fresh and sweet, by the side of the hot, dusty road.
Untrained were its branches, untended it flourished,
No eye watched its opening or mourned its decay;
But its leaves by the soft dews of heaven were nourished,
And it opened its buds in the warm light of day.
I asked why it grew there where none prized its beauty,
For of thousands who passed none had leisure to stay.
And the answer came sweetly, “I do but my duty;
I was told to grow here by the side of the way.”
There are those on life’s pathway whose spirits are willing
To dwell where the busy crowd passes them by;
But the dew from above on their leaves is distilling,
And they bloom ’neath the smile of the All-seeing Eye.
They are loved by the few—like the rose, they remind us,
When tempted from duty’s safe pathway to stray;
We, too, have a place and a mission assign’d us,
Though it be but to grow by the side of the way.
A SONG FOR THE CONQUERED.
WILLIAM W. STORY.
I sing the Hymn of the Conquered, who fell in the battle of life;
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife.
Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim
Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame.
But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart,
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part;
Whose youth bore no flower in its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes
away;
From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at; who stood at the
dying of day
With the work of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone,
With death swooping down o’er their failure, and all but their faith
overthrown.
While the voice of the world shouts its chorus,—its pæan for those who
have won,—
While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breeze and
the sun
Gay banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet
Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the field of
defeat,
In the shadow ’mongst those who are fallen, and wounded and dying, and
there
Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted brows, breathe
a prayer,
Hold the hand that is hapless, and whisper, “They only the victory win
Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts
us within;
Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds
on high;
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight—if need be to
die.”
Speak, History! Who are life’s victors? Unroll thy long annals, and say—
Are they those whom the world called the victors who won the success of
the day?
The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylæ’s tryst,
Or the Persians of Xerxes? His judges, or Socrates? Pilate, or Christ?
THE AMEN OF THE ROCKS.
CHRISTIAN GELLERT.
The Venerable Bede, with age grown blind,
till went abroad to preach the new evangel.
From town to town, village to village, journeyed
The saintly elder, with a lad for guide,
And preached the word with youthful zeal and fervor;
And once the lad led him along a vale,
All scattered o’er with mighty moss-grown bowlders.
More thoughtless than malicious quoth the urchin,
“Here, reverend father, many men have come,
And all the multitude await thy sermon.”
The blind old man stood upright at his speech,
And spake his text, explained it, thence digressed,
Exhorted, warned, reproved, and comforted,
So earnestly that tears of love and joy
Ran down his cheeks, and on his long gray beard;
Then, as was meet, he ended with “Our Father,
Thine is the kingdom, Thine the power, and Thine
The glory is forever and forever.”
Then came a thousand, thousand answering voices—
“Yea, reverend father, amen and amen.”
Then, terrified, the boy fell down repentant,
Confessing to the saint his ill behavior.
“Son,” said the holy man, “didst thou read never
That stones themselves shall cry if man is silent?
Play thou no more, my son, with things divine.
God’s word is powerful, and cuts more sharp
Than any two-edged sword. And if it be
That man toward the Lord is stony-hearted,
A human heart shall wake in stones, and witness.”
ONLY A LITTLE THING.
MRS. M. P. HANDY.
It was only a tiny seed,
Carelessly brushed aside;
But it grew in time to a noxious weed,
And spread its poison wide.
It was only a little leak,
So small you might hardly see;
But the rising waters found the break,
And wrecked the great levee.
It was only a single spark,
Dropped by a passing train;
But the dead leaves caught, and swift and dark
Was its work on wood and plain.
It was only an unsound nail
That the workman used—ah me!
But the ship that else had weathered the gale
Went down in the deep, dark sea.
It was only a thoughtless word,
Scarce meant to be unkind;
But it pierced as a dart to the heart that heard,
And left its sting behind.
It may seem a trifle at most,
The thing that we do or say;
And yet it may be that at fearful cost
We may wish it undone some day.
THE LITTLE MESSENGER OF LOVE.
’Twas a little sermon preached to me
By a sweet, unconscious child—
A baby girl, scarce four years old,
With blue eyes soft and mild.
It happened on a rainy day;
I, seated in a car,
Was thinking, as I neared my home,
Of the continual jar
And discord that pervade the air
Of busy city life,
Each caring but for “number one,”
Self-gain provoking strife.
The gloomy weather seemed to cast
On every face a shade,
But on one countenance were lines
By sorrow deeply laid.
With low bowed head and hands clasped close,
She sat, so poor and old,
Nor seemed to heed the scornful glance
From eyes unkind and cold.
I looked again. Oh, sweet indeed
The sight that met my eyes!
Sitting upon her mothers lap,
With baby face so wise,
Was a wee child with sunny curls,
Blue eyes, and dimpled chin,
And a young, pure, loving heart
Unstained as yet by sin.
Upon the woman poor and sad
Her eyes in wonder fell,
Till wonder changed to pitying love;
Her thoughts, oh, who could tell?
Her tiny hands four roses held;
She looked them o’er and o’er,
Then choosing out the largest one,
She struggled to the floor.
Across the swaying car she went
Straight to the woman’s side,
And putting in the wrinkled hand
The rose, she ran to hide
Her little face in mother’s lap,
Fearing she had done wrong,
Not knowing, baby as she was,
That she had helped along
The up-hill road of life a soul
Cast down, discouraged quite,
As on the woman’s face there broke
A flood of joyous light.
Dear little child! she was indeed
A messenger of love
Sent to that woman’s lonely heart
From the great Heart above.
This world would be a different place
Were each to give to those
Whose hearts are sad as much of love
As went with baby’s rose.
_Harper’s Young People._
* * * * *
I’d rather be right than to be President of the United States.—HENRY
CLAY.
ORIGINAL MAXIMS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.
[_Recitations for Twelve Students._]
I.
Commerce and industry are the best mines of a nation.
II.
Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of every one.
III.
Ingratitude, I hope, will never constitute a part of my character, nor
find a place in my bosom.
IV.
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire
called conscience.
V.
To persevere is one’s duty, and to be silent is the best answer to
calumny.
VI.
I never wish to promise more than I have a moral certainty of performing.
VII.
I shall never attempt to palliate my own foibles by exposing the error of
another.
VIII.
It is a maxim with me not to ask what, under similar circumstances, I
would not grant.
IX.
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those be well tried
before you give them your confidence.
X.
Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for
it is better to be alone than in bad company.
XI.
A good character is the first essential in a man. It is, therefore,
highly important to endeavor not only to be learned, but virtuous.
XII.
I am resolved that no misrepresentations, falsehoods, or calumny shall
make me swerve from what I conceive to be the strict line of duty.
THE WORK OF A SUNBEAM.
NATHAN G. SHEPHERD.
I have read in old tales of the buried past,
Of two armies which met on the battle-plain;
Roman and Cymbric, in numbers vast,
How they fought till the field was heaped with slain;
And how through all day the crimson tide
Of battle favored the Cymbric side,
Though their dead bestrewed the plain,
Till at length, from out of the clouded skies,
A sunbeam darted across the world,
Blinding the Cymbrian warrior’s eyes;
And backward their conquering hosts were hurled.
And thus in the record of years is told
How a sunbeam, back in the days of old,
Decided the fate of the world.
THE SILVER BIRD’S NEST.
A stranded soldier’s epaulet
The waters cast ashore,
A little wingèd rover met,
And eyed it o’er and o’er;
The silver bright so charmed her sight,
On that lone idle vest,
She knew not why she should deny
Herself a silver nest.
The shining wire she pecked and twirled,
Then bore it to her bough,
Where on a flowery twig ’twas curled,
The bird can show you how;
But when enough of that bright stuff
The cunning builder bore,
Her house to make, she would not take,
Nor did she covet, more.
And when the little artisan—
While neither pride nor guilt
Had entered in her pretty plan—
Her resting-place had built,
With here and there a plume to spare,
About her own light form,
Of these, inlaid with skill, she made
A lining soft and warm.
But do you think the tender brood
She fondled there, and fed,
Were prouder when they understood
The sheen about their bed?
Do you suppose they ever rose,
Of higher powers possessed,
Because they knew they peeped and grew
Within a silver nest?
LUTHER.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
Valiant, defiant, and free,
Majestic, impressive, and lone,
He looms like that isle of the sea
That rose to an emperor’s throne.
Honor where manhood is found,
Glory where valor has led,
To priest or not priest, the world round;
To white man, or black man, or red.
Honor to manhood and worth,
Glory to action and deed,
To manhood, not priesthood, on earth;
For man is the master of creed.
ORIGINAL MAXIMS OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.
[_Recitations for Ten Students._]
I.
A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
II.
Poets may be born, but success is made.
III.
Be fit for more than the one thing you are now doing.
IV.
I would rather be beaten in right than succeed in wrong.
V.
Luck is an _ignis fatuus_. You may follow it to ruin, but not to success.
VI.
If the power to do hard work is not a talent, it is the best possible
substitute for it.
VII.
I would rather be defeated than make capital out of my religion.
VIII.
Things don’t turn up in this world unless somebody turns them up.
IX.
Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills
and its valleys are its soil, its spirit, and its life.
X.
The privilege of being a young man is a great privilege, and the
privilege of growing to be an independent man, in middle life, is a
greater.
* * * * *
It is a strange fancy of mine, but I cannot help wishing we could move
for returns—as their phrase is in parliament—for the suffering caused
in any one day, or other period of time, throughout the world, to be
arranged under certain heads; and we should then see what the world has
occasion to fear most. What a large amount would come under the heads of
unreasonable fear of others, of miserable quarrels amongst relations upon
infinitesimally small subjects, of imaginary slights, of undue cares,
of false shames, of absolute misunderstandings, of unnecessary pains to
maintain credit or reputation, of vexation that we cannot make others of
the same mind with ourselves! What a wonderful thing it would be to see
set down in figures, as it were, how ingenious we are in plaguing one
another!—ARTHUR HELPS.
THE ANGEL OF DAWN.
J. S. CUTLER.
One morn an angel stopped beside my door,
Clad in the shining garments of the dawn;
Upon his brow a starry crown he wore;
In his right hand a flaming sword was drawn.
With terror filled, I prayed with piteous cry
The angel-presence then to pass me by.
“I am not death,” the angel said, and smiled;
“Thy soul shall have the answer to thy prayer.
Drive from thy breast this fearful anguish wild;
I am the Angel of the Dawn—beware!
I place a priceless jewel in thy hands;
The day is thine, waste not its running sands.
“Therefore mark well—thy duty waiteth thee,
Beside the morning’s swiftly opening gate;
The new day dawns—its hours will quickly flee;
Stamp them with honor ere it be too late;
Thy deed may lift thee higher than thy prayer.
The day is thine, remember and beware!”
And then the angel took his shining way,
On silent wings, out to the shadowy west;
And swiftly onward came the new-born day,
The priceless jewel of my angel-guest.
The birds awoke and filled the world with song,
And made my burden light the whole day long.
And now, when morning throws its early beams
In golden rays across the ocean’s floor,
And I awake from slumbering and dreams,
I know an angel waiteth at the door;
I hear again that kindly voice declare—
“Thy deed may lift thee higher than thy prayer.”
QUESTIONS.
KATE LAWRENCE.
Can you put the spider’s web back in its place that once has been swept
away?
Can you put the apple again on the bough which fell at our feet to-day?
Can you put the lily-cup back on the stem, and cause it to live and grow?
Can you mend the butterfly’s broken wing that you crushed with a hasty
blow?
Can you put the bloom again on the grape, or the grape again on the vine?
Can you put the dew-drops back on the flowers and make them sparkle and
shine?
Can you put the petals back on the rose? If you could, would it smell as
sweet?
Can you put the flour again in the husk, and show me the ripened wheat?
Can you put the kernel back in the nut, or the broken egg in its shell?
Can you put the honey back in the comb, and cover with wax each cell?
Can you put the perfume back in the vase, when once it has sped away?
Can you put the corn-silk back on the corn, or the down on catkins—say?
You think that my questions are trifling, then? Let me ask you another
one:
Can a hasty word ever be unsaid, or a deed unkind undone?
THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.
FELICIA HEMANS.
Plymouth (Dec. 21, 1620).