MORNING'S ADVENT. Though long be the darkness, and dreary That springs from the night of the years, We grope in the midst of the shadows, The whispers of spring will awaken The night and the clouds roll away; Prof. Barker is a ready writer of prose, forcible, pointed, and terse. Doubtless the sanctum's discipline has helped him in this respect. He has done a great Ideal of editorial work. For six years he was one of the editors of the New York Teacher. Three years he as sisted in editing The Christian Freeman, printed in Chicago. Supplementing his school duties he has generally furnished correspondence for one or more papers, use of the pen being his recreation. During the war he purchased an interest in the Daily Journal and Courier, and Weekly Intelligencer, at Lockport, and became coeditor thereof. After three years of active journalistic labor, in which he made the daily and weekly issues of those papers strongly felt on the Union side, fire came, destroying their office and all its contents, and ruining him financially. Incendiarism did it, as was supposed, prompted by distaste for his strong loyal utterances. His accumulations gone, Prof. Barker resumed teaching-in Buffalo, if we mistake not, where he now resides,—and so the editorial profession lost a worthy member, and that of teaching won back one of its best. He has written much upon educational topics, and all that he writes is characterized by comprehensiveness of thought, liberality of ideas, and vigor of expression, joined to practical knowledge and native common sense. Prof. Barker loves freedom, progression, truth, as does every man of poetic feeling. He is hopeful. One of his war pieces closed thus: Up through the battle and the storm Shall vanish in the strife away; When light shall melt the frozen bars That shut from day the human soul, The Right shall hold supreme control; The gold from dross is purified. Every poet has sentimentalized over "what we might have been." In a poem bearing that title Prof. Barker thus expressed himself: The ghost of every murdered hour, Clad in its dread array, Darts ever 'mid our fairest walks To steal our joys away. Prof. Barker is a useful man in community, -active, full of good words and works. He has long been a member of a Free Baptist Church, and a zealous servant in the Sunday School. We have room for but one more specimen of his verse, -on PURPOSE. Far back in the realm of the ages, When the stars of the morning sung, We are told, in the lore of the sages, 1 4. That this gray old earth was young; That it sprang from the womb of chaos At the feet of its God, And the glowing depth of azure, Was the shining path it trod. That the night slept on the waters, The purple tinted hill; That the sunny spring came never, But through those dreary chambers, And the startled waters heard; 'T was the muttering of the earthquake, And it plowed the earth and sky, And over the dismal waters, It piled the furrows high. The mountain and the valley Lay in their quiet sleep, Till the sun lapped up the waters Till the wind breathed in its gladness And scattered the generous showers Then the seeds of new-born beauty Lies smiling on the plain, And out of the realm of ages, And over the shadows of night, There springeth a new creation, There blossoms a world of light; And ever the spring hath music, And ever the summer a bloom, Then what if the spring time linger? I know that the morning cometh, I know there's a realm of bliss, And a life of joy and beauty |