Only in dreams is a ladder thrown

From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; But the dreams depart, and the vision falls, And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone. Heaven is not reached ai a single bound;

But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit round by round.

183.—IN MEMORIAM.

TENNYSON.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith, we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seemed my sin in me;
What seem u my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth
And in thy wisdom make me wise.

184.-GOOD DEEDS PAST.

SHAKSPEARE.

Ulysses.-Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devoured As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honor bright: to have done is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honor travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;-

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,

O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present,

Though less than yours in past, must o'er-top yours:

For Time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,

Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. Oh, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,

Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all

To envious and calumniating Time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,

That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee
And still it might; and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent;

Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.

Troilus and Cressida

185-A PSALM OF LIFE.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest !

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

-

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;-
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

186-PULPIT ORATORY.

DANIEL DOUGHERTY.

The daily work of the pulpit is not to convince the judgment, but to touch the heart. We all know it is our duty to Love our Creator and serve him, but the aim is to make mankind do it. It is not enough to convert our belief to Christianity, but to turn our souls towards God. Therefore the preacher will find in the armory of the feelings the weapons with which to defend against sin, assail Satan and achieve the victory the fruits of which shall never perish. And oh, how infinite the variety, how inexhaustible the resources, of this armory! how irresistible the weapons, when grasped by the hand of a master!

Every passion of the human heart, every sentiment that sways the soul, every action or character in the vast realms of history or the boundless world about us, the preacher can summon obedient to his command. He can paint in vivid colors the last hours of the just man-when, all his temptations and trials over, he smilingly sinks to sleep, to awake amid the glories of the eternal morn. He can tell the pampered man of ill-gotten gold that the hour draws nigh when he shall feel the cold and clammy hand of Death, and that all his wealth cannot buy him from the worm. He can drag before his hearers the slimy hypocrite, tear from his heart his secret crimes, and expose his accursed villainy to the gaze of all. He can appeal to the purest promptings of the Christian heart, the love of God and hatred of sin. He can depict the stupendous and appalling truth that the Saviour from the highest throne in Heaven descended, and here, on earth, assumed the form of fallen man, and for us died upon the cross like a malefactor.

He can startle and awe strike his hearers as he descants on the terrible justice of the Almighty in hurling from Heaven Lucifer and his apostate legions; in letting loose the mighty waters until they swallowed the wide earth and every living thing, burying the highest mountains in the universal deluge, shadows of the coming of that awful day for which all other days are made. He can roll back the sky as a scroll, and, ascending to heaven, picture its ecstatic joys, where seraphic voices tuned in celestial harmony sing their hymns of praise. He can dive into the depths of hell and describe the howling and gnashing of teeth of the damned, chained in its flaming caverns, ever burning yet never consumed. He can, in a word, in imagination, assume the sublime attributes of the Deity, and, as the Supreme Mercy and Goodness, make tears of contrition start and stream from every eye; or, armed with the dread prerogatives of the Inexorable Judge, with the lightning of his wrath strike unrepentant souls until sinners sink on their knees and quail as Felix quailed before St. Paul.

187.-THE CYNIC.

H. W. BEECHER.

The Cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game. The Cynic puts all human actions into only two classes-openly bad and secretly bad. All virtue, and generosity, and disinterestedness, are merely the appearance of good, but selfish at the bottom. He holds that no man does a good thing except for profit. The effect of his conversation upon your feelings is to chill and sear them, to send you away sour and morose.

His criticisms and innuendoes fall indiscriminately upon every lovely thing, like frost upon the flowers. If Mr. A. is pronounced a religious man, he will reply: yes, on Sundays. Mr. B. has just joined the church: certainly; the elections are coming on. The minister of the gospel is called an example of diligence: it is his trade. Such a man is generous: of other men's money. This man is obliging: to lull suspicion and cheat you. That man is upright: because he is green. Thus his eye strains out every good quality, and takes in only the bad. To him religion is hypocrisy, honesty a preparation for