And the darkest hour, as the proverb goes,
Is the hour before the dawning.

There is many a gem in the path of life,
Which we pass in our idle pleasure,
That is richer far than the jeweled crown,
Or the miser's hoarded treasure:
It may be the love of a little child,
Or a mother's prayers to Heaven;
Or only a beggar's grateful thanks,
For a cup of water given.

Better to weave in the web of life

A bright and golden filling,

And to do God's will with a ready heart,
And hands that are swift and willing,

Than to snap the delicate, slender threads
Of our curious lives asunder,

And then blame Heaven for the tangled ends,
And sit, and grieve, and wonder.

297.-A SINGING LESSON.
JEAN INGELOW.

A nightingale made a mistake-
She sang a few notes out of tune-
Her heart was ready to break,

And she hid from the moon.
She wrung her claws, poor thing,
But was far too proud to weep;
She tucked her head under her wing,
And pretended to be asleep.

A lark, arm-in-arm with a thrush,
Came sauntering up to the place;
The nightingale felt herself blush,
Though feathers hid her face.
She knew they had heard her song,
She felt them snicker and sneer;
She thought that this life was too long,
And wished she could skip a year.

"Oh, nightingale," cooed a dove,
"Oh, nightingale, what's the use?
You, a bird of beauty and love,
Why behave like a goose?
Don't skulk away from our sight
Like a common contemptible fowl;

You bird of joy and delight,

Why behave like an owl?

Only think of all you have done-
Only think of all you can do ;
A false note is really fun

From such a bird as you!
Lift up your proud little crest;
Open your musical beak;
Other birds have to do their best,
But you need only speak."

The nightingale shyly took
Her head from under her wing,
And giving the dove a look,
Straightway began to sing.
There was never a bird could pass-
The night was divinely calm-
And the people stood on the grass
To hear that wonderful psalm.

The nightingale did not care-
She only sang to the skies;
Her song ascended there,

And there she fixed her eyes.
The people who listened below
She knew but little about-
And this tale has a moral, I know,
If you'll try to find it out.

298.-FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

When the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night

Wake the better soul that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,

Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true hearted,
Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,

By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me

With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.

O, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only

Such as these have lived and died!

299.-SACRED INFLUENCES.

JOSEPH COOK.

Looking around the globe to-day, we see an unbroken line of Christian influences in the near future, stretching from the Yosemite to the Sandwich Islands, to Australia, Japan, India, past the Suez Canal, thence to the Bosphorus, to Germany, to England, and then across that little brook we call the Atlantic, only two seconds wide now for electricity. There are no foreign lands. Christianity at this hour reads her Scriptures, and lifts up her anthems, in two hundred languages. One-half of the missionaries of the globe may be reached from Boston by telegraph in twenty-four hours. God is making commerce his missionary.

It is incontrovertible that it was predicted ages ago, that a chosen man called yonder out of Ur of the Chaldees should become a chosen family, and this a chosen nation, and that in this nation should appear a chosen Supreme Teacher of the

race, and that he should found a chosen church, and that, to his chosen people, with zeal for good works, should ultimately be given all nations and the isles of the sea. In precisely this order world-history has unrolled itself, and is now unrolling. No man can deny this. No man can meditate adequately on this without blanched cheeks. What are the signs of the times which I have recounted on this festal morn, but added waves in this fathomlessly mysterious gulf-current? We know it began with the ripple we call Abraham. It is now almost as broad as the Atlantic itself.

What providence does, it from the first intends to do. We see what it has done. We know what it intended. It has - caused this gulf-current to flow in one direction two thousand, three thousand, four thousand years. Good tidings, this gulfcurrent, if we float with it!-good tidings which are to be to all peoples! A Power not ourselves makes for righteousness. It has steadily caused the fittest to survive, and thus has executed a plan of choosing a peculiar people. The survival of the fittest will ultimately give the world to the fit. Are we, in our anxiety for the future, to believe that this law will alter soon? or to fear that He whose will the law expresses, and who never slumbers nor sleeps, will change his plan to-morrow, or the day after?

300.-SELECTIONS IN VERSE.

WINDING MY WATCH.

I wind my watch in the low lamp-light,
As I've wound it up how many a night!
To measure me out the hours to be,

As the future were mine through this little key.

Yet, winding my watch, I well may muse,
How this thing of pins and wheels and screws,
With my own name cut in its golden curve,
Will outlast the life it was set to serve.

How an hour will come of the low lamp-light
Burning low for my dying sight,

When to wind my watch no need will be,
Because Time will forever be done with me.

Who will wind it after I cannot know,
Who wear it for love's sake, what shall show
In the whirl of fates? But beyond these bounds
Shall I see why it beat me out such rounds?

Days all whose moments were counted on,
As if drops of agony, one by one,

Bled slow at each stroke from my heart within;
Ah! shall I see why these days have been?

Throb, little hands, through your circling ways,
Make up my measure of mortal days,
All the strange seasons ye have told,
Not here is your riddle dark unrolled.

But oh! somewhere in the high heaven set,
May God's great dial, marking yet
All our times by the bright sun of love,
Show even my times to that sun to move.

THE GOOD GREAT MAN.

"How seldom, friend, a good great man inherits
Honor and wealth, with all his worth and pains?
It seems a story from the world of spirits
When any man obtains that which he merits,
Or any merits which he obtains."

For shame, my friend! renounce this idle strain !
What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain ?
Wealth, title, dignity, a golden chain,

Or heap of corses which his sword hath slain ?
Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends.

Hath he not always treasures, always friends,

The good great man? Three treasures,-love, and iight
And calm thoughts, equable as infant's breath;
And three fast friends, more sure than day or night,—
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

FOREVER.

Those we love truly never die,

Though year by year the sad memorial wreath,
A ring and flowers, types of life and death,
Are laid upon their graves.

For death the pure life saves,

And life all pure is love; and love can reach
From Heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach
Than those by mortals read.

Well blest is he who has a dear one dead:
A friend he has whose face will never change-
A dear communion that will not grow strange:
The anchor of a love is death.

The blessed sweetness of a loving breath Will reach our cheek all fresh through weary years, For her who died long since, ah! waste not tears: She's thine unto the end.