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MORNING'S ADVENT.

Though long be the darkness, and dreary
The story the night winds may tell,—
O the shadows and mists from the mountains
The coming of morn will dispel!
We are nearing the beautiful morning,

That springs from the night of the years,
And the sunlight, so mellow and golden,
Will drink all the dew of our tears.

We grope in the midst of the shadows,
And look for the prints by the shore,
of feet that have passed the “dark river,”
And shall walk in the darkness no more;
In the glow of the glimmering starlight,
We can travel the wearisome way,
And we know that the deeper the darkness,
The nearer the dawn of the day.

The whispers of spring will awaken
The dream of the redolent hours,
And the touch of the beautiful sunlight
Will open the tombs of the flowers;
We shall see from that summit of glory

The night and the clouds roll away;
And the billows that sweep the dark ocean,
Are bearing us on to the day!

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
The world is marching to the day
When vile oppression's fiendish form

Shall vanish in the strife away;

When light shall melt the frozen bars

That shut from day the human soul,
And, heard no more the strife of wars,

The Right shall hold supreme control;
But know by fire, severely tried,

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.

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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,

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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,
And the air was hushed and still,
That the morning never painted

The purple tinted hill;

That the sunny spring came never,
Or the autumn's golden prime,
But the cold and rayless winter
Was the pendulum of time.
O the gloom of that mystic darkness,
O the measure of those years,
When the depth of depths resounded
With the "music of the spheres!"

But through those dreary chambers,
There rang a mighty word,
The earth with life responded,

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
From the hollows of the deep,

Till the wind breathed in its gladness
From off the swelling strand,

And scattered the generous showers
Athwart the thirsty land.

Then the seeds of new-born beauty
Seem scattered far and near,
And the spring grows soft and radiant,
And the summer flowers appear
The autumn, ripe and golden

Lies smiling on the plain,
And the hill-tops and the forests
Join in the glad refrain ;

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,
That laugh at the boast of winter,
And scatter a sweet perfume.

Then what if the spring time linger?
Or what if the night be long?
And what if the muttering earthquake,
Be the chorus of my song?

I know that the morning cometh,

I know there's a realm of bliss,

And a life of joy and beauty
Will blossom out of this.

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