And thus, across life's fairest day,
Some cloud of grief will roll,
Unwelcome to the heart of man,
But wholesome to the soul.

Oh! think not God's most precious gifts
In beams and smiles are given ;
What drowns our joy is often sent
To ripen us for heaven.

MRS. TONNA.

PRAISE.

HARPS of eternity! begin the song;
Redeemed, and angel harps! begin to God,

Begin the anthem ever sweet and new ;
While I extol Him, holy, just, and good.
Life, beauty, light, intelligence, and love!
Eternal, uncreated, infinite!

Unsearchable Jehovah! God of truth!
Maker, Upholder, Governor of all :

Thyself unmade, ungoverned, unupheld.

Mysterious more the more displayed, where still
Upon thy glorious throne thou sittest alone;
Alone, invisible, immortal One!

Incomprehensible! what know we more

Of thee, what need to know, than thou hast taught,
And bidst us still repeat, at morn and even,
God! everlasting Father! holy One!

Our God, our Father, our eternal all?

Source whence we came, and whither we return,

Who made the heaven, who made the flowery land.
Thy works all praise thee; all thy angels praise;
Thy saints adore, and on thine altar burn

The fragrant incense of perpetual love.

They praise thee now; their hearts, their voices praise, And swell the rapture of the glorious song.

POLLOK.

THE IDOL.

WHATEVER passes as a cloud between
The mental eye of faith and things unseen,
Causing that brighter world to disappear
Or seem less lovely, and its hope less dear:
This is our world, our idol, though it bear
Affection's impress, or devotion's air!

ANON.

CHRISTIAN WARFARE.

SOLDIER, go-but not to claim

Mouldering spoils of earth-born treasure,
Not to build a vaunting name,
Not to dwell in tents of pleasure.

Dream not that the way is smooth,
Hope not that the thorns are roses;
Turn no wishful eye of youth
Where the sunny beam reposes.
Thou hast sterner work to do,
Hosts to cut thy passage through;

Close behind thee gulfs are burning,
Forward!-there is no returning.

Soldier, rest-but not for thee
Spreads the world her downy pillow;
On the Rock thy couch will be,
While around thee chafes the billow.
Thine must be a watchful sleep,
Wearier than another's waking;
Such a charge as thou dost keep
Brooks no moment of forsaking.
Sleep, as on the battle-field,
Girded, grasping sword and shield:
Those thou canst not name or number
Steal upon thy broken slumber.

Soldier, rise the war is done!
Lo, the hosts of hell are flying!
'Twas thy Lord the battle won;
Jesus vanquished them by dying.
Pass the stream-before thee lies
All the conquered land of glory..
Hark! what songs of rapturé rise,
These proclaim the victor's story.
Soldier, lay thy weapons down,
Quit the sword, and take the crown.
Triumph all thy foes are banished;
Death is slain, and earth has vanished.

MRS. TONNA.

THE CATACOMBS.

TRANSLATION.

An Extract from Prudentius, in his Hymn, "Peristephanon."

AROUND the walls where Romulus once reigned,
We see, Valerian, countless relics of the saints.
You ask, What epitaphs are graven on these tombs ?
The names of those who there are laid to rest?
A question difficult for me to answer!

For in the olden times of heathen rage

So great a Christian host was swept away,

When Rome would have her country's gods adored;
Yet in some martyr's sepulchre his name is seen,
Or else some anagram his friends have carved.
There, too, are silent tombs which dumb stones close,
Telling us nothing but the number buried there;
And thus we know how many rest below,
Though names and appellations all are lost.
Beneath one single mount some sixty lie,

Though Christ alone has kept the record of these name
As being those of His peculiar friends.

Beyond the rampart, 'mid the garden grounds,
Darkles a crypt in the sequestered mine;
With tortuous steps, a swift descent and prone,
Dives down into its heart. The cavern's mouth
Lies open freely to the day, and drinks
A light that cheers the shadowy vestibule ;
But, in its bosom, night, obscure and vast,
Blackens around the explorer's way, nor yields

Save where, down fissures slanting through the vaults,
Clear rays, though broken, glance on roof and wall.
On all sides spreads the labyrinth, woven dense
With paths that cross each other; branching now
In caverned chapels and sepulchral halls :
But even through the subterranean maze

That light from fissure and from cleft looks down,
Fruition granting of an absent sun.

REMARKABLE ESCAPE FROM THE CATACOMBS

OF A YOUNG FRENCH ARTIST.

EAGER to know the secrets of the place,
The sacred cradle of our Christian race,
A youthful artist threads those inmost cells,
The lowest crypts, where only darkness dwells.
No friend to cheer him, and no guide to lead,
He boldly trusts a flambeau and a thread.
Brave and alone he cherishes his light,
And trusts the clew will guide him back aright.
Onward he goes, along the low-arched caves,
Crowded with martyrs' relics and their graves;
Through palaces of death, by countless tombs,
Through awful silence and through thickening glooms;
Yet pausing oft, as walls and slabs impart
Some lesson of the earliest Christian art,
Or some black chasm warns him to beware,

And change his steps, and trim his torch with care.