1 To make the music and the beauty needs The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. Great Master, touch us with Thy skillful hand; Let not the inusic that is in us die ! Hidden and lost, Thy form within us lie! Spare not the stroke ! Do with us as Thou wilt ! Let there be naught unfinished, broken, marred; HORATIUS BONAR. Living Not in Vain. As the untimely death of the good is our strongest moral assurance of the Resurrection, so the life wearily worn out in doubtful and perilous conflict with Wrong and Woe is our most conclusive evidence that Wrong and Woe shall yet vanish forever. Luther, dying amid the agonizing tears and wild consternation of all Protest: ant Germany; Columbus, borne in regal pomp to his grave by the satellites of the royal miscreant whose ingratitude and perfidy had broken his mighty heart—these teach us, at least, that all true greatness is ripened and tempered and proved in life-long struggle against vicious beliefs, traditions, practices, institutions; and that not to have been a Reformer is not to have truly lived. Life is a bubble which any breath may dissolve; Wealth or Power a snow-flake, melting momently into the treacherous deep across whose waves we are floated on to our unseen destiny; but to have lived so that one less orphan is called to choose between starvation and infamy, to have lived so that some eyes of those whom Fame shall never know are brightened and others suffused at the name of the beloved one—so that the few who knew him truly shall recognize him as a bright, warm, cheering presence, which was here for a season and left the world no worse for his stay in it—this, surely, is to have really lived—and not wholly in vain.-HORACE GREELEY. We Live in Deeds. We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; P. J. BAILEY. “None of Us Liveth Unto Himself.” God has written upon the flower that sweetens the air, upon the breeze that rocks the flower on its stem, upon the rain-drops which swell the mighty river, upon the dew-drop that refreshes the smallest sprig of moss that rears its head in the desert, upon the ocean that rocks every swimmer in'its chambers, upon every penciled shell that sleeps in the caverns of the deep, as well as upon the mighty sun which warms and cheers the millions of creatures that live in its light-upon all hath He written: “ None of us liveth unto himself.”— JOHN TODD. A Well.Spent Life. Oh, happiest he, whose riper years retain J. T. FIELDS. “Good Morning" in Another Clime. Life! I know not what thou art, Life! We've been long together, Choose thine own time. Say not “Good night,” but in some brighter clime Bid me “Good morning. " ANNA L. BARBAULD. The Loom of Life. All day, all night, I can hear the jar Busily, ceaselessly goes the loom a Click, clack ! There's a thread of love wove in. Time, with a face like mystery When shall this wonderful web be done? Ah, sad-eyed weaver! The years are slow, But each one is nearer the end, I know; Are we spinners of woof for this life-web-say? ANONYMOUS. Good Life, Long Life. He liveth long who liveth well. All else is but life flung away! Of true things truly done each day. Then fill each hour with what will last; Buy up the moments as they go. Is the ripe fruit of life below. Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure ! Sow peace, and reap its harvest bright! HORATIUS BONAR. What We Live For. What live we for but this ? Into the soul to breathe the soul of sweetness; The stunted growth to rear to fair completeness; |