But woe to him, who wakes at last
From listless dreams and false repose,
To see at eve the gathering blast
And life first darkened at its close.

J. D. BURNS.

See what a Lovely Shell.

"The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."

EE what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as pearl,

Lying close to my foot;

Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairly well

With delicate spire and whorl,

How exquisitely minute,

A miracle of design!

What is it? A learned man

Could give it a clumsy name.

Let him name it who can,

The beauty would be the same.

The tiny cell is forlorn,

Void of the little living will

That made it stir on the shore.

Did he stand at the diamond door

Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn,
Through his dim water-world?

TENNYSON.

A Lesson by the Sea-shore.

T

HE waves were dashing loud and high,
My child looked on with me:

"Father," she cried, "why may not I

Trust God, and walk the sea?

"Was it not lack of faith alone
That made the Apostle sink?
By faith therefore it may be done :
Father what should I think?"

"The Lord bade Peter go, my child;
And should He thee command,
Thy feet would on these waters wild
Be firm as on this sand.

"But life has storms more awful yet,

Waves rougher than yon sea; Then do not thou in these forget

That Jesus is with thee.

"Care not what others have to do-
What may be, or has been;
But on the path God calls thee, go;
And use thy faith therein."

HINDS.

A Thought on the Sea-shore.

N every object here I see

Something, O Lord, that leads to Thee.
Firm as the rock Thy promise stands,

Thy mercies countless as the sands;
Thy love, a sea immensely wide;

Thy grace, an ever-flowing tide.

In every object here I see

Something, my heart, that points at thee: Hard as the rocks that bound the strand, Unfruitful as the barren sand;

Deep and deceitful as the ocean,

And, like the tides, in constant motion.

NEWTON.

R

"And there was no more Sea!"

EST for the weary! what so sweet as rest?

Go, ask the pale mechanic at his loom;

Or him whose dinted helm and blood-stained plume
Speak of hard fields; or mariners who breast
Ocean's wild waves; and each one will attest
For this sweet boon he makes his ceaseless prayer.
But most of all, ask life's tired voyager

What lures him to the region of the blest?
"Tis not its loud hosannas, crowns, or palm—

Its light ne'er dimmed, its bowers by angels trod :
No next to the full vision of his God

He yearns to feel the rapture of its calm,-
Which haply in those words may imaged be

(Instinct with rest), "And there was no more sea!"

MRS. HEY.

Lobe's Ministry.

"There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."

I

HEARD the wavelet kiss the shore

Ere lost within the sea,

And the ripple of the silvery tide
Seemed as a psalm to me;

Contented with God's holy will,

Its feeble voice to raise

To hymn His glory, and be lost,
Nor thirst for human praise.

Lord, make me, like the ocean's voice,

Obedient to Thy will;

Thy purpose work as faithfully,
And at Thy word be still.

A breeze that filled a drooping sail,
Bore to one sorrowing breast
A promise from the Lord of life,
And sank again to rest.

Brief was its service, few the words
It wafted to the shore,

But they nestled in a mourner's heart,
And the west wind's task was o'er.

I, like the sea-breeze, swift and true
Thy messenger would be,

And bear, Lord, to some burdened soul,
A word of peace from Thee.

I marked the soft dew silently

Descend o'er plain and hill;

On each parched herb and drooping flower The heavenly cloud distil.