But his eternal love is sure

To all the saints, and shall endure:
From age to age his truth shall reign,
Nor children's children hope in vain.

TRUE DIGNITY.

Brattie.

TRUE Dignity is his, whose tranquil mind
Virtue has raised above the things below;
Who every hope and fear to Heaven resigned,
Shrinks not, though Fortune aim her deadliest
blow.

LIFE IS A PILGRIMAGE.

Mrs. Opie.

WE are pilgrims all on life's rugged way,

And some wear the stole and the staff; But how tried are these through their toilsome day, By the scorner's dreaded laugh!

For while on they go in their pilgrim guise,

And hat with cockle-shells,

How oft the worldly scorner cries,

"Lo, Folly, with cap and bells!"

But the pilgrim prays, and then trials are light,
For prayer to him on his way
Resembles the pillar of fire by night,
And the guiding cloud by day.

And vain were the hat, the staff, and stole,
And all outward signs were a snare,
Unless the pilgrim's endangered soul,
Were inwardly clothed with prayer.
And salvation's helm the pilgrim wears,
Or vain were all other dress-

And the shield of faith the pilgrim bears,
With "the breastplate of righteousness."
So clad, so armed, to his journey's end
He goes secure from wrongs,

And when Zion's hill his feet ascend,
How sweetly will sound her songs!

But rough are its sides, and steep its ascent,
Yet onward he firmly go,

Protecting wings will o'er him be bent,
And the Saviour will strength bestow.

And when Zion's glittering walls are near,
Though his eyes may with tears be dim,
Some rays from her gates his soul will cheer,
And the swell of her choral hymn.

At length, his tears all wiped away,
He enters the city of light,

And how gladly he changes his gown of gray,

For Zion's robe of white!

Then the dear and the blessed ones meet his gaze, From whom death no more shall sever,

And he joins in their endless hymn of praise,

THOUGHTS OF HEAVEN.

Mary Bowitt.

THOUGHTS of heaven! they come when low
The summer even breeze doth faintly blow;
When the mighty sea shines clear, unstirred
By the wavering tide, or the dipping bird:
They come in the rush of the surging storm,
When the blackening waves rear their giant form—
When o'er the dark rocks curl the breakers white,
And the terrible lightnings rend the night—
When the noble ship hath vainly striven

With the tempest's might, come thoughts of heaven.

They come where man doth not intrude,
In the untracked forest's solitude;
In the stillness of the gray rock's height,
Where the lonely eagle takes his flight;
On peaks where lie the eternal snows;
In the sunbright isle, mid its rich repose.
In the heathy glen; by the dark clear lake,
When the fair swan sails from her silent brake;
When nature reigns in her deepest rest,
Pure thoughts of heaven come unrepressed.

They come as we gaze on the midnight sky,
When the star-gemmed vault looks dark and high,
And the soul, on the wings of thought sublime,
Soars from the dim world, and the bounds of time.
Till the mental eye becomes unsealed,

Yea, even more!

Lay down the body! Hast thou worshipped it
With vanity's sweet incense, and wild waste
Of precious time? Did beauty bring it gifts,
The lily brow, the full resplendent eye,

The tress, the bloom, the grace, whose magic power
Woke man's idolatry? The loan is o'er,

Dust turns to dust.

Yet the lone soul retains

One blessed trophy; if its span

below

Secured the palm of Christ's atoning love :

For that shall win an entrance when it stands

A pilgrim at Heaven's gate.

"SHOW US THE FATHER."

Mrs. Sigourney.

JOHN, iv. 8.

HAVE ye not seen Him, when through parted snows
Wake the first kindlings of the vernal green ?
When 'neath its modest veil the arbutus blows,
And the pure snow-drop bursts its folded screen?
When the wild rose, that asks no florist's care,
Unfoldeth its rich leaves, have ye not seen him there?

Have ye not seen Him, when the infant's eye, Through its bright sapphire-windows, shows the mind?

When, in the trembling of the tear or sigh,

Floats forth that essence, trembling and refinedSaw ye not Him, the author of our trust,

Who breathed the breath of life into a frame of dust?

Have ye not heard Him, when the tuneful rill
Casts off its icy chains and leaps away?
In thunders echoing loud from hill to hill?
In song of birds at break of summer's day?
Or in the ocean's everlasting roar,

Battling the old gray rocks that sternly guard his shore ?

Amid the stillness of the Sabbath morn,

When vexing cares in tranquil slumber rest: When in the heart the holy thought is born,

And Heaven's high impulse warms the waiting breast,

Have ye not felt Him, while your kindling prayer Swell'd out in tones of praise, announcing God was

there ?

Show us the Father! If ye fail to trace
His chariot where the stars majestic roll,
His pencil 'mid earth's loveliness and grace,
His presence in the Sabbath of the soul,
How can you see Him till the day of dread,

When to assembled worlds the book of doom is read ?

FAITH.

William Wordsworth.

Nor seldom, clad in radiant vest,

Deceitfully goes forth the morn;

Not seldom, evening in the west
Sinks smilingly forsworn.