1

attached to her. When grown to womanhood, the two sisters removed to New York, and gained their living by their contributions to literature. It is said that in their religious creed they were Universalists; but however that may be, their hymns have been adopted by all sorts of hymn-book compilers, and sung by Christians of all denominations. It is said, too, that one of Phebe's hymns, “One sweetly solemn thought,” hummed over unconsciously in a gambling-den in China, was the means, by reviving old memories, of saving more than one man, who heard it, from the dissipations of gambling life. Alice Cary died in the beginning of 1871, and Phebe Cary died at Newport, Rhode Island, of grief and exhaustion, caused by the death of Alice, a few months later. The sisters "were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided." After twenty years of literary life, they both rested from "their labours."

We quote, as a specimen of Phebe's poetic power, a piece little known to English readers, entitled "Overpayment."

"I took a little good seed in my hand,

And cast it tearfully upon the land,

Saying, 'Of this the fowls of heaven shall eat,
Or the sun scorch it with his burning heat.'

"Yet I, who sowed oppressed with doubts and fears,
Rejoicing, gathered in the ripened ears;
For when the harvest turned the fields to gold,
Mine yielded back to me a thousandfold.

"A little child begged humbly at my door;
Small was the gift I gave her, being poor,

But let my heart go with it; therefore we
Were both made richer by that charity.

"My soul with grief was darkened, I was bowed
Beneath the shadow of an awful cloud,
When one whose sky was wholly overspread
Came to me, asking to be comforted.

"It roused me from my weak and selfish fears,
It dried my own to dry another's tears;
The bow, to which I pointed in the skies,
Set all my cloud with sweetest promises.

"Once, seeing the inevitable way

My feet must tread through thorny places lay,

I cannot go alone,' I cried dismayed;

'I faint, I fail, I perish without aid.'

"Yet when I looked to see if help were nigh,

A creature weaker, wretcheder than I,
One on whose head life's fiercest storms had beat,
Clung to my garments, falling at my feet.

"I saw, I paused no more; my courage found,
I stooped and raised her gently from the ground:
Through every peril safe I passed at length,
For she who leaned upon me gave me strength.

"Once, when I hid my wretched self from Him,
My Father's brightness seemed withdrawn and dim
But when I lifted up my eyes, I learned
His face to those who seek is always turned.

"A half-unwilling sacrifice I made,

Ten thousand blessings on my head were laid;
I asked a comforter upon me to descend,
God made himself my Comforter and Friend.

"I sought his mercy in a faltering prayer:
Lo! his infinite tenderness and care,
Like a great sea that hath no ebbing tide,
Encompassed me with love on every side."

;

Another little poem of hers, entitled "Chastening," though not strictly a hymn, is so good that it is worth quoting.

"Crooked and dwarfed the tree must stay,

Nor lift its green head to the day,
Till useless growths are lopped away.

"And thus doth human nature do :
Till it hath careful pruning, too,
It cannot grow up straight and true;

"For, but for chastenings severe,
No soul could ever tell how near
God comes to whom he loveth here.

"We learn at last how good and brave
Was the dear friend we could not save
When he has slipped into the grave.

"And after He has come to hide

Our lambs upon the other side,

We know our Shepherd and our Guide.

"And, thus by ways not understood,
Out of each dark vicissitude,
God brings us compensating good.

"For faith is perfected by fears,

And souls renew their youth with years,

And love looks into heaven through tears."

A

CHAPTER IX.

Minor hymn Writers.

AMERICAN.—(Continued.)

SWEET little hymn, composed upon the words, "Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me," was written by Miss MARY KENT STONE, daughter of Dr. Stone, Dean of the Theological School at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Of conflict, longing, vague unrest-
Thou seest the end;

And thou wilt lead my weary feet
From world-worn ways,

Through paths of everlasting peace,
To calmer days.

"Lord, dwell within my heart, and fill
Its emptiness;

Set thou its hope above the reach
Of earthliness.

Baptize its love, through suffering,

Into thine own,

And work in me a faith that rests

On Christ alone."

Miss MARY G. BRAINERD has given us a favourite hymn of trustfulness and confidence in God. It appears in a mutilated form in Sankey's "Songs and Solos," but we here give the whole of the poem. It is eminently suitable for the New Year.

"I know not what shall befall me ;
God hangs a mist o'er my eyes,
And o'er each step in the onward path
He makes new scenes to rise,

And every joy he sends me comes
As a sweet and glad surprise.

"I see not a step before me

As I tread on another year;
But the past is still in God's keeping,
The future his mercy shall clear;
And what looks dark in the distance
May brighten as I draw near.

"For perhaps the dreaded future
Has less bitter than I think;
The Lord may sweeten the waters
Before I stoop to drink,