1869.

To-day is life in blossom:
Heart's-ease in every bosom,
And all is beautiful.

A spirit within us springing
At heaven's gate will be singing,
Thanks for the Sunday school!
We sun us in its brightness;
We clothe us in its whiteness,

As doth the wayside pool,
That holds from morn till even
Its little bit of heaven,

The gladsome Sunday school! Here learn we how to lighten The heaviest lot, and brighten The day most dark and dule, And lay up childhood's treasure, To reap immortal pleasure

Even in a Sunday school.

The summer earth rejoices,
With hers we lift our voices,

And heaven blends the whole. And when God's angels cover us, Drawing the darkness over us, They bless the Sunday school.

GERALD MASSEY.

A SUN-DAY HYMN.

This was first used in a collection of hymns, by a committee of the Methodist Protestant Church, by permission of the author, in 1860.

LORD of all being throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star :
Centre and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!
Sun of our life, thy quickening ray
Sheds on our path the glow of day;
Star of our hope, thy softened light
Cheers the long watches of the night.
Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn ;
Our noontide is thy gracious dawn;
Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign;
All, save the clouds of sin, are thine.

Lord of all life, below, above,

Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, Before thy ever-blazing throne

We ask no lustre of our own.

A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA.

THE ship went on with solemn face :
To meet the darkness on the deep,
The solemn ship went onward.
I bowed down weary in the place;
For parting tears and present sleep

Had weighed mine eyelids downward.

Thick sleep which shut all dreams from me, And kept my inner self apart

And quiet from emotion,

Then brake away and left me free,
Made conscious of a human heart
Betwixt the heaven and ocean.

The new sight, the new wondrous sight!
The waters round me, turbulent,

The skies impassive o'er me,
Calm in a moonless, sunless light,
Half glorified by that intent
Of holding the day-glory!

Two pale thin clouds did stand upon
The meeting line of sea and sky,
With aspect still and mystic.

I think they did foresee the sun,
And rested on their prophecy
In quietude majestic ;

Then flushed to radiance where they stood, Like statues by the open tomb

Of shining saints half risen. — The sun! he came up to be viewed; And sky and sea made mighty room To inaugurate the vision!

I oft had seen the dawnlight run,

As red wine, through the hills, and break Through many a mist's inurning: But, here, no earth profaned the sun! Heaven, ocean, did alone partake The sacrament of morning.

Away with thoughts fantastical!

I would be humble to my worth, Self-guarded as self-doubted. Though here no earthly shadows fall, I, joying, grieving without earth, May desecrate without it.

God's Sabbath morning sweeps the waves:
I would not praise the pageant high,
Yet miss the dedicature:

I, carried towards the sunless graves
By force of natural things, — should I
Exult in only nature?