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Golden Rule Co.

Steps beyond a lifting latch

Veiled- -as glad eyes blind with tears
When a long-wished joy appears.

O, not far they dwell, not far,
Near as faith and mercy are;
Near-as ears that lean to catch

Star-sown heights nor depths can part
Friends who meet in Jesus' heart.

Ramparts of the sunrise sky,

Bastions of infinity,

Are but outworks of the home

Unto which we two shall come.

Here the gate is open wide

There the farthest courts of space

Center on one altar-side,

Lighted by one blessed Face.

We on earth our own above,

Linked in hope and life and love

For the city where they went
Is the home of heart-content.

-Mabel Earle.

"Goodby, Till Morning"
"GOOD-BY, till morning come again,"

We part, but not with aught of pain,
The night is short, and hope is sweet,
It fills our hearts, and wings our feet;
And so we sing the glad refrain,
"Good-by, till morning come again."

"Good-by, till morning come again,'

The shade of death brings thought of pain,
But could we know how short the night
That falls, and hides them from our sight,

Our hearts would sing the glad refrain,
"Good-by, till morning come again."

-Anon.

And still their silent ministry

Within my heart hath place,

As when on earth they walked with me
And met me face to face.

Their lives are made forever mine;
What they to me have been
Hath left henceforth its seal and sign
Engraven deep within.

Mine are they by an ownership

Nor time nor death can free;

For God hath given love to keep

Its own eternally.

-Frederick L. Hosmer.

She filled life's empty cup to me
Brimful, a moment's space,
With soft eyes looking up to me
To drink to her dear face.

Out of the dark she came to me,
Through the night she went away;

But the night is never the same to me

She left a hope of day!

-Odell Shepard.

The Choir Invisible

H, MAY I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence; live

In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

For miserable aims that end in self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence, urge men's search
To vaster issues. So to live is heaven;

To make undying music in the world,

Breathing as beauteous order that controls

With growing sway the growing life of man.
This is life to come,

Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us to strive for. May I reach

That purest heaven, to be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty-
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

-George Eliot.

How

Somewhere

OW can I cease to pray for thee? Somewhere
In God's great universe thou art today.

Can he not reach thee with his tender care?
Can he not hear me when for thee I pray?

What matters it to Him who holds within

The hollow of his hand all worlds, all space,
That thou art done with earthly pain and sin?
Somewhere within his ken thou hast a place.

Somewhere thou livest and hast need of Him;
Somewhere thy soul sees higher heights to climb,
And somewhere still there may be valleys dim

That thou must pass to reach the hills sublime.

Then all the more because thou canst not hear,
Poor human words of blessing will I pray.
O true brave heart; God bless thee, whereso'er
In his great universe thou art today.

-Julia Caroline Dorr.

Plus Ultra

FAR beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises

Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond:

Thought can see not thence the goal of hope's surmises

Far beyond.

Night and day have made an everlasting bond

Each with each to hide in yet more deep disguises Truth, till souls of men that thirst for truth despond.

All that man in pride of spirit slights or prizes,

All the dreams that make him fearful, fain or fond, Fade at forethought's touch of life's unknown surprises Far beyond.

-Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Auld Lang Syne

T SINGETH low in every heart,

IT

We hear it, each and all,

A song of those who answer not,

However we may call;

They throng the silence of the breast,
We see them as of yore,-

The kind, the brave, the true, the sweet,
Who walk with us no more.

'Tis hard to take the burden up,
When these have laid it down;
They brightened all the joy of life,
They softened every frown;
But oh, 'tis good to think of them,
When we are troubled sore,-
Thanks be to God that such have been,
Though they are here no more.

More homelike seems the vast unknown,
Since they have entered there;
To follow them were not so hard,
Wherever they may fare;

They cannot be where God is not,

On any sea or shore;

Whate'er betides, their love abides,

And God's forevermore.

-J. W. Chadwick.

The Song Celestial

(Bagavad-Gita)

NAY, but as when one layeth

His worn-out robes away,

And, taking new ones, sayeth,

"These will I wear today!"

So putteth by the spirit

Lightly its garb of flesh,

And passeth to inherit

A residence afresh. Trans. by Edwin Arnold.