THE VOYAGERS

Perhaps you have stood upon the wharf when a steamer that carries a friend of yours puts out to sea. You watch the receding figure of your friend, and the fading outlines of the vessel till all becomes blurred, and the veil of distance which enwraps the vessel, answers back perhaps to the mist that gathers in your own eyes. And you turn and thoughtfully wend your way back home; your thoughts go out after him and his come back to you; they meet and pass but do not salute. No means of interchange. And through the still evening you think; and through the still night you think. There is one thing that comforts you. You cannot quite picture where he is, you cannot tell how he is; but there is one thing that your heart fastens to. You know that he is; he is.

It is not much, but when it is all it is a good deal.

He is. He has a mind and a heart. And just this instant when you are thinking he is thinking--somewhere: just this moment when you are loving,— loving him he is loving, perhaps he is loving you. —Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst.

THE SONG OF TRUST

Dear Lord, since thou didst make the earth,
Thou mad'st it not for grief, but mirth:

Therefore will I be glad,

And let who will be sad.

For if I load my life with care,
What profits me the buxom air,

And what the sweet birds' choir,
Or heaven's azure fire?

If I cannot choose but weep,
Weeping I'll think I do but sleep

'Till thou shalt bid me wake
And triumph for thy sake.

Lord, as 't is thine eternal state,
With joy undimmed to contemplate

The world that thou hast wrought,
As mirror for thy thought.

So every morning I would rise,
And offer thee for sacrifice

A spirit light and clear

As thy wide atmosphere.

For, Lord, since all is well with thee,
It cannot well be ill with me.

AS ONE HIS MOTHER COMFORTETH

Thy way lies o'er the mountain road,
The end thou canst not see;

And, child, thou hast a weary load,
Wilt pause and rest with Me?
As one his mother comforteth,
So will I comfort thee.

The night grows dark, the storm is wild,
Thy burden hard to bear,
Why stagger on, thou weary child,

When I am here to share?

Nay as a mother comforteth,
To take, Myself, thy care.

To be thy refuge from all harm,
To bear thy grief and smart,
To Me the pain, for thee the balm;
Thou, of thyself, a part.

Thy cradle waits thee-in My arms

Thy pillow is My heart.

There! rest thee now; in every sound

Of wind or wave or tree,

Hear thou My whisper: "I have found.

A child!" Stay close by Me!

As one his mother comforteth,

George MacDonald

So will I comfort thee.-Mary Lowe Dickinson.

THE WAY HOME

muses: "To pass through the valley of the shadow of death is the way home." And many look forward to that last step of the pilgrimage not only with no fear, but with delighted anticipation.

"I feel about all things as I do about the things that happen in a hotel after my trunk is packed to go home," wrote Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, toward the end of her pilgrimage, to George Eliot. I may be vexed and annoyed.... But what of it! I am going home soon!"

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And on our arrival shall we not be met by friends, even as we are met by them on earth at the end of a journey? How sweet to think that the familiar helping hands will be stretched forth as of old to assist our first faltering steps, that the well-known hearty voices will sound their welcome in our cars. It was old General Moltke who wrote to his sister after such a meeting with his wife: "As Mary met me joyously at the railway station after the campaign in 1866, so I hope she will meet me above when the torture of this life is at last over, For that I often yearn with all my heart."-P. W. Roose.

DEATH OF LITTLE PAUL

Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how time went, but watching it and watching everything about him with observing eyes.

When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen. deepen into night. Then he thought how the long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead.

His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he thought how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the host of stars, and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the sea.

As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the streets became so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they passed and lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the many-colored rings about the candle. and wait patiently for the day. His only trouble was the swift and rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try and stop it-to stem it with his childish hands or choke its way with sand; and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried out! But a word from Florence, who was always at his side, restored him to himself, and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he told Floy of his dream. When the day began to dawn again he watched for the sun; and when its cheerful light began to sparkle in the room he pictured to himself-pictured! he saw-the high church towers up in the morning sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more, the river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the country bright with dew.

Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees into the street below; the servants in the house were roused and busy; faces looked in at the door and voices asked his attendants softly how he was. Paul always answered for himself "I am better. I am a great deal better, thank you. Tell papa so!"

By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing, and would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense again-the child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his waking moments-of that rushing river. "Why, will it never stop, Floy?" he would sometimes ask her. "It is bearing me away, I

think!"

But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; and it was his daily delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow and take some rest. Now lay me down," he said; "and, Floy, come close to me and let see you!"

me

Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the olden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together.

"How fast the river runs between its banks and the rushes, Floy! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said so!"

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the bank?

He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them so, behind her neck.

"Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about the head is shining on me as I go!"

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion,-Death!

O, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!-Charles Dickens.