THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.

[AN has explored all countries and all lands,

MAN

And made his own the secrets of each clime.

Now, ere the world has fully reached its prime, The oval earth lies compassed with steel bands, The seas are slaves to ships that touch all strands, And even the haughty elements sublime

And bold, yield him their secrets for all time, And speed like lackeys forth at his commands.

Still, though he search from shore to distant shore,
And no strange realms, no unlocated plains
Are left for his attainment and control,

Yet is there one more kingdom to explore.

Go, know thyself, O man! there yet remains The undiscovered country of thy soul!

A

THE UNIVERSAL ROUTE.

S we journey along, with a laugh and a song, We see, on youth's flower-decked slope, Like a beacon of light, shining fair on the sight, The beautiful Station of Hope.

But the wheels of old Time roll along as we climb, And our youth speeds away on the years;

And with hearts that are numb with life's sorrows

we come

To the mist-covered Station of Tears.

Still onward we pass, where the milestones, alas! Are the tombs of our dead, to the West,

Where glitters and gleams, in the dying sunbeams, The sweet, silent Station of Rest.

All rest is but change, and no grave can estrange
The soul from its Parent above;

And, scorning the rod, it soars back to its God,
To the limitless City of Love.

L

UNANSWERED PRAYERS.

IKE some school master, kind in being stern,

Who hears the children crying o'er their slates And calling, "Help me, master!" yet helps not, Since in his silence and refusal lies

Their self-development, so God abides
Unheeding many prayers. He is not deaf
To any cry sent up from earnest hearts;
He hears and strengthens when He must deny.
He sees us weeping over life's hard sums,
But should He give the key and dry our tears,
What would it profit us when school were done
And not one lesson mastered?

What a world

Were this if all our prayers were answered.
In famed Pandora's box were such vast ills
As lie in human hearts. Should our desires,
Voiced one by one in prayer, ascend to God
And come back as events shaped to our wish,
What chaos would result!

Not

In my fierce youth

I sighed out breath enough to move a fleet, Voicing wild prayers to heaven for fancied boons

Which were denied; and that denial bends

My knee to prayers of gratitude each day

Of my maturer years.

Yet from those prayers

I rose alway regirded for the strife

And conscious of new strength. Pray on, sad heart, That which thou pleadest for may not be given,

But in the lofty altitude where souls

Who supplicate God's grace are lifted, there
Thou shalt find help to bear thy daily lot
Which is not elsewhere found.

7

WE

THANKSGIVING.

WE walk on starry fields of white And do not see the daisies; For blessings common in our sight

We rarely offer praises.

We sigh for some supreme delight

To crown our lives with splendor, And quite ignore our daily store Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way Upon our thought and feeling. They hang about us all the day,

Our time from pleasure stealing.

So unobtrusive many a joy

We pass by and forget it,

But worry strives to own our lives,
And conquers if we let it.

There's not a day in all the year

But holds some hidden pleasure, And looking back, joys oft appear To brim the past's wide measure. But blessings are like friends, I hold, Who love and labor near us.