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188

An aged Christian went tottering by,

LIFE-LIGHT.

This span of life was lent

And white was his hair, and dim was his For lofty duties, not for selfishness;

eye;

And his broken spirit seemed ready to fly,
As he said, with faltering breath:

"It is life, to move from the heart's first throes,

Through youth and manhood, to age's snows, In a ceaseless circle of joys and woes;

It is life to prepare for death."

C. D. DRAKE.

And such is human life at best

A mother's, a lover's, the green earth's breast;
A hopeful, a joyful, a sorrowful stave;
A launch, a voyage, a whelming wave;
The cradle, the bridal-bed, and the grave.
ANONYMOUS.

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed, boundless sea,
The silent grave!

Thither, all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up, and lost
In one dark wave.

From the Spanish of MANRIQUE.

These years of life, what do they seem?
A little dream

Of pain and pleasure blent together,
A time of sharply changing weather;
Where brilliant sunbeams gleam and die
On heavy storm-clouds sailing by,

Where falling tears

Are bright with hope and cold with fears. ANONYMOUS.

Flitting away, flitting away,
Hour by hour, and day by day.
Never a break in the running thread,
Never a pause in the solemn tread;
Onward, onward, day and night,
Through joy's bloom and sorrow's blight;
On through childhood, youth, and age,
Over the bright or blotted page,
Over ambition's tinted cloud,
Over despair's funereal shroud,

On through labor, on through rest,
On when cheered, or when depressed,
Ever our life is flitting away,
Hour by hour, and day by day.

M. TRAFTON.

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Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime At length the world, renewed by calm repose, Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl. Was strong for toil, the dappled morn arose. PARNELL.

MILTON.

Mornings are mysterics; the first world's youth,
Man's resurrection, and the future's bud
Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light,
truth,

To prayer! to prayer! for the morning breaks,
And earth in her Maker's smile awakes.
His light is on all below, above,
The light of gladness, and life, and love.

Is styled their star, the stone, and hidden O then, in the breath of the early air,

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190

LIGHT-LORD'S SUPPER.

O Thou whose word from solid darkness struck | Study the light; attempt the high; seek out That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my The soul's bright path; and since the soul is soul.

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