We seek for the bloom of the eglantine,

The painted thistle and brier,

And follow the course of the wandering vine,
Whether it trail on the earth supine,
Or round the aspiring tree-top twine,
And reach for a stage still higher.

As each for the good of the whole is bent,
And stores up its treasure for all;

We hope for an evening with hearts content,
For the winter of life without lament,
That summer is gone with its hours misspent,
And the harvest is past recall."

"O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course, And many a stream allures her to its source; 'Tis noon, 'tis night, that eye so finely wrought, Beyond the search of sense, the soar of thought, Now vainly seeks the scenes she left behind, Its orb so full, its vision so confined.

Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell?
Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell?
With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue

Of varied scents that charmed her as she flew ?
Hail, memory, hail; thy universal reign
Guards the least link of being's glorious chain.

Thou cheerful bee, come, freely come,
And travel round my woodbine bower:
Delight me with thy wandering hum,
And rouse me from my musing hour.
Oh, try no more these tedious fields;
Come, taste the sweets my garden yields;
The treasures of each blooming mine,
The bud, the blossom, all are thine.

And careless of the noontide heat,
I'll follow as thy ramble guides,

To watch thee pause, and chafe thy feet,
And sweep them o'er thy downy sides;
Then in a flower-bell nestling lie,
And all thy envied ardour ply;
Then o'er the stem, though fair it grow,
With touch rejecting, glance and go.

O nature kind! O labourer wise,
That roam'st along the summer ray,
Glean'st every bliss thy life supplies,
And meet'st prepared thy wintry day:
Go, envied go-with crowded gates,
The hive thy rich return awaits;
Bear home thy store in triumph gay,
And shame each idler of the day."

"So work the honey-bees;

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, mostly trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they, with merry march, bring
home

To the tent royal of their emperor,
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivers o'er to executors pale
The lazy, yawning drone."

The Lark on the Coast.

(Written at Margate, June, 1865.)

HE Lark on the coast, in light noonday,
With cadence sweet the welkin is filling;
As he soars and swells his cheerful lay,
Old Ocean's billow below is thrilling.

Hark! as he warbles in liquid air,
The rippling ebb-tide is slow replying;
As he rests content in his high-born lair,
Each wave to the wind is fondly sighing.

The voice of the bird aloft is lost,
The warbling songster's note is fast failing;
The lute of the tide attracts me most,
With its restless monotones prevailing.

I think of the harps all bright above,
With golden strings, of sounds unceasing;
I look to the scenes, all fair with love,
Where Music's sweet voice is ne'er decreasing.

I long on the "sea of glass" to stand,
While no wing is tir'd, the skies ascending;
Where not e'en a ripple disturbs the sand,
Nor sighs from the shore with songs are blending:
Where the heavens are seen to earth to bow,
No boom of discordant sound is ringing;
The concert, unbroken, is echoing now,
With praise to the Lord "without beginning."
W. STONE, M.A.

In Memoriam.

HEN the leaves were falling
In their first decay,
"Dust to dust" recalling,
Then he passed away.
Passed he as the leaf falls
When frosts touch the stem;
Vainly love or grief calls

After him or them.

A gleam is on the river,

A foam-bell on the sea,
A moment, where for ever
They never more shall be.

So we: the ocean throws us

A moment on time's shore, And then the place which knows us Can know our feet no more.

Earthly care and duty

Never more have place: In death's silent beauty Lies the dreamless face.

From the waxen fingers

Droop the fading flowers, And the smile which lingers Never more is ours.

"Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."-MATT. xviii. 6.

OE unto him that poisoneth the spring
Where at its source it springeth clear and pure.
Far as it floweth doth the taint endure;
Sorrow and death to many a home doth bring.
Woe unto him that breaks the tender shoot,
Marring the promise of the early flower;

Vainly, when parched with thirst in summer's hour,
Doth he return to seek the cooling fruit.
But keenest shall he feel the avenging rod
Who hath by precept or by deed defiled
The tender spirit of a little child,
Training it for the earth, not for the sky.
Lo, he hath marred the fairest work of God;
And a lost soul proclaims his guilt for aye.

HE poetical efforts this month, with the exception of REBECCA's, are all, more or less, failures. E. B. B., Charlotte P., J. F. O., David C., Godfrey F. E., Lilian E., M. P., Daisy C., Fish, and C. F. S., must try again.

The first enigma in the May part is still unanswered.

All contributions sent must be accompanied with solutions.

A word for our "Fireside Volunteers" will be found in "Notices to Friends and Correspondents" this month.

In future, Solutions, Answers &c., are to be sent, by the 20th of the same month in which the Enigmas, &c., are published, to " Aunt Mercy and Uncle Cheerful," care of the Editor, Worcester. Our young friends will please note this change.

V.

CHRONOLOGICAL PUZZLES.

1. Two-fourths of half, three-sixths of a town in Italy, and two-eighths of a fossil, will give the date of the fulfilment of a remarkable prophecy.

2. Heaviness beheaded, two vowels, a consonant, three-sixths of an appetite, two-fifths of what is laughable, two-fifths of a proclamation, a conjunction, three-fourths of a musical instrument, two-thirds of a beverage, and twosixths of the whole, will give the date of a celebrated battle. J. V. F.

VI.

1. My first you find on land and sea;
My next on land you only see;
My whole, I'll tell you, is a tree.
J. F. O.

2. My first cannot do without my second, though my second can do without my first; but together they are very useful.

ARITHMETICAL PUZZLE.

Arrange five-eights so as to make them | equal to 2555. ELLEN.

"The parent of devotion.”—E. B. B. "The pilot of action."--J. F. O. "Turning the sod for hidden wealth." REBECCA. "The hand that gently plucks the fruit from the tree of life."-E. B. B., and DAVID C. "The cradle of great actions."-D. E. F. "A gem which lies deep in the mine of thought."-HARRIETTE.

"A harmless 'spirit medium.'”—J. F. O. "The fruit of the bud of thought."

SINTRAM. "Not dreaming, but thinking; not wishing, but seeking; not hearing, but applying." DAVID C.

"The mind digesting its food."

J. C., DAISY C., REBECCA, and IOTA. "The calm waters of a soul at peace."

LIZZIE.

Intercourse with distant friends." EARNEST HOPE. "A sine quâ non of useful knowledge."

66

LILIAN E.

Memory basking in the sunshine of reflection."-M. P.

"The antechamber of action,"-FISH.

"The workshop of the mind."-T. T. T.

DARK SAYINGS ON A HARP. By the Rev. Paxton Hood, Author of "Wordsworth, a Biography," &c. London: Jackson, Walford and Hodder.

These are sermons sui generis. The writer is a genuine thinker; he has been compelled to meditate on "some of the dark questions of human life," and many who have shared his discipline will value his guidance. He comes to the conclusion that we cannot roll away the burden of the mystery, but CHRIST lightens it." The sermons contain passages of the truest eloquence, and although we might take exception to some few expressions in the volume, we regard it as the product of a gifted mind, deeply taught in the school of Christian experience, and likely to be of great service in the present day. Dark Sayings on a Harp," " Unfulfilled Lives," "God's Terrible Things," "Light Given the Way Hidden," Story without an End," "The Spectre's Question,' Aspects of Death," and • The Heavenly Liturgy," are some of the suggestive topics. We extract a paragraph in Heart Cheer for Home Sorrow."

66

66

The

ST. PAUL'S PREACHING AT CORINTH. By the Rev. Charles Clayton, M.A. London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday.

Published at the request of two Bishops, and with the approbation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, we commend this sermon as a masterly exposition of the sum and substance of the Gospel. We quote the following:

"In his admirable 'Remains' it is well observed by good Mr. R. Cecil, Christ is God's great ordinance.' 'God,' he says, 'puts peculiar honour on the preaching of Christ crucified. A philosopher may philosophize his hearers, but the preaching of Christ will alone convert them. Men may preach Christ ignorantly, blunderingly, absurdly, yet God will give that preaching efficacy, because He is determined to magnify His own ordinance.' This is preaching Christ, to tell lost men their need of a Saviour; to declare to our people their transgressions, and to our parishioners their sins; and to cry, as with a herald's trumpet, that they need, as sinners, a ransom; as condemned, a pardon; as rebels, a propitiation; as lost, salvation."

THE FAMILY CIRCLE. By the Rev. Andrew Morton, Edinburgh. Edinburgh: W. Oliphant and Co.

Books of this character cannot be too widely circulated. We need not express our sense of the importance of cultivating home piety. The existence of" OUR OWN FIRESIDE" sufficiently indicates that. But we heartily welcome Mr. Morton's contribution, as а means to this end; and we cordially recommend his treatise.

"In every family unity there is diversity. Το harmonise the diversities of character found in the little home-world is woman's peculiar glory. For the accomplishment of this man wants the intuitive tact: the quick, tender perception, the gentle, enduring spirit which are necessary. Your brother is, perhaps, out in the world. His mind is exposed to the grating action of annoyances and temptations from which your home-life shields you. Is it not reasonable that you should surpass him in gentleness? Is it not right that you should meet him with the kindly smile and the soothing sisterly attentions which, while they are not very difficult for you to render, will act as a charm upon him? Some sisters do not care for a brother's interests. They feel no responsibility resting on them to promote his happiness. Need such wonder that they are not loved? Be it yours to rise superior to the selfishness which lurks here. Keep your eye fixed on Him who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.'

"Strive to establish your brother in good principles.

"If the germ of piety is within him, aim humbly and lovingly to unfold and ripen it. This is not to be done by constantly talking and arguing about religion. The word in season,' spoken in the right tone, and interpreted by your own example, will transcend in power all the logic of the polemic or the effect of diffusive advice-giving.

"Cling to your brother in trial, and even in his disgrace."

"Who will stand at his bedside in sickness if not you? And oh! should he fall, and become what your young heart cannot dare to think of, do not you disown him. Disown! I had almost said, then is the time to love him more than ever. Never give him up. Let the world call him 'prodigal' or 'profligate,' and treat him as such. He is your brother, and a sister's forgiving love may win back the wanderer to purity and peace.'

The writer, a teacher in the Schools of St. Sepulchre, Snow-hill, has given the results of his experience and observation in a very interesting little book, which we hope will get into many Sunday-school libraries. Christian affection and sound common sense equally characterize what he has written.

EUSTACE CAREY: a Missionary in India. A Memoir. By Mrs. Eustace Carey. London : Pewtress and Co.

Missionary biography cannot be too much read in the present day. The reality of the sacrifice made evinces the power of Christian truth over the heart and life. However some may sneer at the labours of our missionaries, Robert Hall uttered sober truth when he said,