THE RлDE CODINUEL. "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." "God with us-Emmanuel!" Sound the news through lowly dell: In Christian and in pagan land, To islands in the distant seas; "God with us-Emmanuel!" Rightly call the news "good-spell ";* And God Himself our griefs hath borne: A good-spell if we cast our care, Ön One who counteth every hair: A good-spell if in Him we trust, When we are smitten to the dust: A good-spell if our debts are paid, Of dark despair then rings the knell, This name of names-Emmanuel! Gospel, i.e. good-spell. MATT. i. 23 THE SORG OF NATURE AND THE SONG OF THE SHIRTS.* "All Thy works shall praise Thee, O LORD; and Thy saints shall bless Thee."-PSALM cxlv. 10. REDEEMING THE TIME. "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." EPHES. V. 15-16. A DECADE AND A SEPTERNATE. DECEMBER THE 1861. 1871. FOURTEENTH "She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day." A REMINISCENCE. O quickly, Alice, time flits by it seems the other day JER. XV. 9. With loyal hearts and warm God-speed we sent thee on thy way, Yet since the time of bitter grief that saw those clouds arise, A decade and a septennate! strange periods these for thought: How much of joy, how much alloy, how many hopes and fears THE AGE OF REASON. E live in ages when God's truth is openly assailed, And teaching that there is no God vociferously hailed; And want of conscience is made up by large excess of lung: When those who claim to reason most cast reason's self away, Wonders of evolution they! evolving white from black: Not wholly unlike apes themselves to see the sense they lack; In reason too unreasoning, the truths revealed they spurn, And whence they sprang, they may, perhaps, at length some day return. And some who scorn the laws of God, despise the laws of man, THE POWERS THAT BE. OD'S word declare the "powers that be are all by Him ordained; |