My half day's work is done,
And this is all my part—
I give a patient God
My patient heart,

And grasp His banner still,

Though all the blue be dim;

These stripes as well as stars
Lead after Him.

MARY WOOLSEY HOWLAND.

Time and Eternity.

It is not Time that flies;

'T is we, 't is we are flying. It is not Life that dies;

'T is we, 't is we are dying. Time and eternity are one; Time is eternity begun.

Life changes, yet without decay; 'T is we alone who pass away.

It is not Truth that flies;

"T is we, 't is we are flying.

It is not Faith that dies;

'T is we, 't is we are dying.

O ever-during Faith and Truth,

Whose youth is age, whose age is youth,

Twin stars of immortality,

Ye cannot perish from our sky.

It is not Hope that flies;

'T is we, 't is we are flying.

It is not Love that dies;

'T is we, 't is we are dying.

Twin streams that have in heaven your birth,

Ye glide in gentle joy through earth.

We fade, like flowers beside you sown;

Ye still are flowing, flowing on.

Yet we but die to live;

It is from death we 're flying;
Forever lives our life,

For us there is no dying.
We die but as the spring bud dies,
In summer's golden glow to rise.
These be our days of April bloom;
Our July is beyond the tomb.

HORATIUS BONAR.

My Ain Countree.

I AM far from my hame, an' I 'm weary often whiles For the longed-for hame-bringing an' my Father's welcome smiles;

I'll ne'er be fu' content until my een do see

The gowden gates o' heaven, an' my ain countree.

The earth is fleck'd wi' flow'rs, mony-tinted, fresh an'

gay,

The birdies warble blithely, for my Father made them sae; But these sights an' these soun's will as naething be to me, When I hear the angels singing in my ain countree.

I've his gude word of promise, that some gladsome day the King

To his ain royal palace his banished hame will bring; Wi' een an' wi' heart running over we shall see "The King in his beauty,” an' our ain countree.

My sins hae been mony' an' my sorrows hae been sair, But there they 'll never vex me, nor be remembered mair; His bluid has made me white, his hand shall wipe mine ee, When he brings me hame at last to my ain countree.

Like a bairn to his mither, a wee birdie to its nest,
I wud fain be ganging noo unto my Saviour's breast;

For he gathers in his bosom witless, worthless lambs like

me,

An' he carries them himself to his ain countree.

He's faithfu' that hath promised, he 'll surely come again;
He'll keep his tryst wi' me, at what hour I dinna ken;
But he bids me still to watch, an' ready aye to be
To gang at ony moment to my ain countree.

So I'm watching aye an' singing o' my hame as I wait,
For the soun'ing o' his footsteps this side the gowden gate.
God gie his grace to ilka ane wha listens noo to me,
That we may a' gang in gladness to our ain countree.
MARY LEE DEMAREST.

The Petrified Fern.

In a valley, centuries ago,

Grew a little fern-leaf green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender,

Waving when the wind crept down so low.

Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it;

Playful sunbeams darted in and found it;

Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it ;

But no foot of man e'er came that way;-
Earth was young and keeping holiday.

Monster fishes swam the silent main;

Stately forests waved their giant branches;
Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches;
Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain.
Nature revelled in grand mysteries;
But the little fern was not like these,
Did not number with the hills and trees,
Only grew and waved its sweet, wild way;
No one came to note it day by day.

Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood,

Heaved the rocks, and changed the mighty motion

Of the strong, dread currents of the ocean;

Moved the hills, and shook the haughty wood;
Crushed the little fern in soft, moist clay,
Covered it, and hid it safe away.

O, the long, long centuries since that day!
O, the changes! O, life's bitter cost,

Since the little useless fern was lost!

Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man,
Searching Nature's secrets far and deep;
From a fissure in a rocky steep

He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran
Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,—
Leafage, veining, fibres, clear and fine-
And the fern's life lay in every line.
So, I think, God hides some souls away,
Sweetly to surprise us the Last Day.

MARY L. BOLLES BRANCH

Tuloom.

ON the coast of Yucatan,

As untenanted of man

As a castle under ban

By a doom

For the deeds of bloody hours,
Overgrown with tropic bowers,
Stand the teocallis towers
Of Tuloom.

One of these is fair to sight,
Where it pinnacles a height;
And the breakers blossom white,
As they boom

And split beneath the walls,
And an ocean murmur falls
Through the melancholy halls
Of Tuloom.

On the summit, as you stand,
All the ocean and the land
Stretch away on either hand,
But the plume

Of the palm is overhead,

And the grass, beneath your tread, Is the monumental bed

Of Tuloom.

All the grandeur of the woods,
And the greatness of the floods,
And the sky that overbroods,
Dress a tomb,

Where the stucco drops away,
And the bat avoids the day,
In the chambers of decay
In Tuloom.

They are battlements of death. When the breezes hold their breath,

Down a hundred feet beneath,

In the flume

Of the sea, as still as glass,
You can see the fishes pass

By the promontory mass
Of Tuloom.

Toward the forest is displayed,
On the terrace, a façade

With devices overlaid:

And the bloom