Labour and Wait.

"Learn to labour and to wait."-LONGFELLOW.

LEARN to labour-easier part,

Of the truth so sweetly sung,

Busy hands make lightsome heart,

To nerve the harassed soul by anguish wrung.

Learn to labour-not for pelf,

Which the sordid mind may please,

Not to foster love of self,

Making man a starveling elf,

Or else the pampered son of aimless ease.

Learn to labour-go abroad,

'Mid the busy haunts of men,

Kindness brings its own reward;

Every service well conferred,

Shall come in better blessings back again.

Learn to labour-Nature shows

In each charm that decks her face,

In the perfume of the rose,

Or the zephyr as it blows,

'Mid all her rich variety of grace,

That, among profusion's range,
Naught is idle, naught is lost,

Labour still produces change,
And with intervention strange,

Procures the greatest good at little cost.

LABOUR AND WAIT.

Learn to labour-in His name,

Who thy noblest powers may claim,
Search his records,-keep his laws,
Follow where his Spirit draws,

And seek to vindicate His holy name.

Learn to wait-attainment high,
Leaning on thy Saviour's breast,
Tarrying for His leave to die,

With the angels hovering nigh,

To bear thee to the mansions of the blest.

Learn to wait-a loved one see,

Suffering on his bed of pain,

Pray for him in his agony,

That he, from sin's vile thraldom free,

May bless the gracious hand that burst his chain.

Learn to wait-God's ways are deep,

Oft His paths we cannot trace,

But in sight the cross we'll keep,

And humbly sow, though others reap,

'Till He, we trust, shall manifest His face.

Learn to wait though life seem long,
Weary pilgrim, soon shall come
Robes of light, the conqueror's song,
Welcome from the angelic throng,

And all the quiet of the peaceful tomb.

403

DEEP humility is a strong bulwark and as we enter into it,

we find safety and true exaltation.

JOHN WOOLMAN.

Che Men of Old.

WELL speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!
Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art,

If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart,
Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past,
By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind
To all the beauty, power, and truth, behind.
Not without reverent awe shouldst thou put by
The cypress branches and the amaranth blooms,
Where, with clasped hands of prayer, upon their tombs.
The effigies of old confessors lie,

God's witnesses; the voices of His will,

Heard in the slow march of the centuries still!

Such were the men at whose rebuking frown,

Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's knee went down
Such from the terrors of the guilty drew

The vassal's freedom and the poor man's due.
St. Anselm (may he rest forevermore

In Heaven's sweet peace!) forbade, of old, the sale
Of men as slaves, and from the sacred pale
Hurled the Northumbrian buyers of the poor.
To ransom souls from bonds and evil fate,
St. Ambrose melted down the sacred plate-
Image of saint, the chalice and the pix,
Crosses of gold, and silver candlesticks.
"MAN IS WORTH MORE THAN TEMPLES!
To such as came his holy work to chide.
And brave Cesarius, stripping altars bare,

he replied

And coining from the Abbey's golden hoard The captive's freedom, answered to the prayer

Or threat of those whose fierce zeal for the Lord Stifled their love of man-"An earthen dish