Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, "They only the victory win,

Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within;

Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds on high;

Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight,—if need be, to die."

Speak, History! Who are Life's victors? Unroll thy long annals and say,

Are they these whom the world called the victors, who won the success of a day?

The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans, who fell at Thermopylæ's tryst,

Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges or Socrates? Pilate or Christ?

FAILURES

ARTHUR W. UPSON

They bear no laurels on their sunless brows,
Nor aught within their pale hands as they go;
They look as men accustomed to the slow
And level onward course 'neath drooping boughs.
Who may these be no trumpet doth arouse,
These of the dark processionals of woe,

Unpraised, unblamed, but whom sad Acheron's flow
Monotonously lulls to dead drowse?

These are the failures. Clutched by circumstance,
They were, say not, too weak!—too ready prey
To their own fear whose fixed Gorgon glance
Made them as stone for aught of great essay;—
Or else they nodded when their Master Chance
Wound his one signal, and went on his way.

Give to the winds thy fears;
Hope and be undismayed;

God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head.

Through waves and clouds and storms
He gently clears thy way;

Wait thou His time; so shall this night
Soon end in joyous day.

Leave to His sovereign sway

To choose and to command;

So shalt thou wondering own, His way
How wise, how strong His hand!

Far, far above thy thought

His counsel shall appear,

When fully He the work hath wrought
That caused thy needless fear.

Let us in life, in death,

Thy steadfast truth declare,

And publish with our latest breath,

The love and guardian care.

Ј

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

SAMUEL LONGFELLOW

I look to Thee in ev'ry need,
And never look in vain;

I feel Thy strong and tender love,
And all is well again;

The thought of Thee is mightier far
Than sin and pain and sorrow are.

Discouraged in the work of life,
Disheartened by its load,
Shamed by its failures or its fears,
I sink beside the road;

But let me only think of Thee,

And then new heart springs up in me.

Thy calmness bends serene above,

My restlessness to still,

Around me flows Thy quickening life
To nerve my faltering will;
Thy presence fills my solitude,
Thy providence turns all to good.

Embosomed deep in Thy great love,
Held in Thy law, I stand;
Thy hand in all things I behold,
And all things in Thy hand;
Thou leadest me by unsought ways,
And turn'st my mourning into praise.

IN DARK HOUR

SEUMAS MACMANUS

I turn my steps where the Lonely Road
Winds as far as the eye can see,
And I bend my back for the burden sore
That God has reached down to me.

I have said farewell to the sun-kissed plains,
To joy I gave good-bye;

Now the bleak wide wastes of the world are mine,
And the winds that wail in the sky.

No bright flower blooms, no sweet bird calls,

Nor hermit ever abode,

Not a green thing lifts one lonely leaf,
O God, on the Lonely Road!

The thick dank mists come stealing down,
And press me on every side,

With never a voice to cheer me on
And never a hand to guide.

I shall cry in my need for a Voice and a Hand,
And the solace of love-wet eyes-

And an icy clutch will close on my heart,
When Echo, the mocker, replies.

I know my good soul will fail me not,

When forms from the dark round me creep, And whisper 'twere sweet to journey no more, But lay down the burden and sleep.

(Look onward and up, O Heart of my Heart, Where the road strikes the skies afar!

To cheer you and guide, thro' your darkest hour, Behold yon beckoning star!)

I set my face to the gray wild wastes,

I bend my back to the load

Dear God, be kind with the heart-sick child
Who steps on the Lonely Road.

COME, YE DISCONSOLATE

THOMAS MOORE

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er you languish,
Come, at God's altar fervently kneel;

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish,-
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,

Hope when all others die, fadeless and pure, Here speaks the comforter, in God's name saying, "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure."

Go, ask the infidel what boon he brings us,

What charm for aching hearts he can reveal, Sweet as that heavenly promise hope sings us,"Earth has no sorrow that God cannot heal."

SORROW

GEORGE SANTAYANA

Have patience; it is fit that in this wise
The spirit purge away its proper dross.
No endless fever doth thy watches toss,

For by excess of evil, evil dies.

Soon shall the faint world melt before thine eyes,

And, all life's losses cancelled by life's loss,
Thou shalt lay down all burdens on thy cross,

And be that day with God in Paradise.
Have patience; for a long eternity

No summons woke thee from thy happy sleep;