Loving the truth with a fervent heart,
Guarding from ill a friend's good name,
Burying deep the tale of shame :
Working to earn the bread we eat,
Climbing the hill with patient feet;
Dealing with men in an honest way,

Seeing Heaven's light in the darkest day;

Bidding the poor to the ample feast,

Treating with kindness the poor dumb beast;

Hoping for all things good and true,

Trusting to God in what we do

Earning true riches as on we go

Buying crown jewels as pure as snow.

Quite different in versification, more forcible it may be, is this which questions

· WHO MISSES HIM.

Gone and who misses him?

Who, with heart swelling,

Softly and mournfully

Passes his dwelling?

Who 'mong them all

Felt the strong life-cord sever?

Who, of the throng

That is surging forever?

Gone! and who misses him?

Friends, perhaps neighbors,

Sigh at his funeral ;

Speak of his labors ;

Strew on his grave

A few blossoms of beauty;

66

Read his white headstone,
Then turn to their duty!

Gone! and who misses him
In the great city?

Who, from the beggar

That 'wakened his pity,

E'en to the many

That courted his favor,

Eating the salt

That has now lost its savor?

Gone! and who misses him?

Raise the latch lightly,

Enter the darkened room

Where he slept nightly.
There sits his weeping wife,
Sister and brother;
There are his little ones,

There kneels his mother!

Ask not who misses him

Him who though lowly,

Owned the sweet treasure

That makes home so holy.
Grander than monuments,

Brighter than fame,
Are their rich offerings

Reared to his name.

Believing, as she once expressed it to us, that 'every day something beautiful comes into our lives, if we would but sift it out from the every-day trials, Mrs.

"

Kidder is doing a sort of home-mission work in the hearts of mankind. There is great need. False ideas

of what life is or ought to be are too common. They may give way to truth, coming on wings of song. the truth come to each soul, and abide therein !

May

CHARLES M. DICKINSON.

|HARLES DICKENS never wrote anything more exquisitely tender than the following, which, though generally appearing as a waif, has been very widely attributed to him :

THE CHILDREN.

When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And the school for the day is dismissed,

The little ones gather around me,

To bid me good-night and be kissed ;
Oh, the little white arms that encircle
My neck in their tender embrace!
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
Shedding sunshine of love on my face'

And when they are gone I sit dreaming
Of my childhood too lovely to last;

Of joy that my heart will remember,

While it wakes to the pulse of the past,
Ere the world and its wickedness made me
A partner of sorrow and sin

When the glory of God was about me,
And the glory of gladness within.

All my heart grows as weak as a woman's,
And the fountains of feeling will flow,
When I think of the paths steep and stony,

Where the feet of the dear ones must go;
Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
Of the tempest of Fate blowing wild;
Oh! there's nothing on earth half so holy
As the innocent heart of a child!

They are idols of hearts and of households:
They are angels of God in disguise;
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,

His glory still gleams in their eyes;
Those truants from home and from heaven-

They have made me more manly and mild; And I know now how Jesus could liken The kingdom of God to a child!

I ask not a life for the dear ones,

All radiant, as others have done,
But that life may have just enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun

I would pray God to guard them from evil,

But my prayer would bound back to myself;

Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,

But a sinner must pray for himself.

The twig is so easily bended,

I have banished the rule and the rod;

I have taught them the goodness of knowledge, They have taught me the goodness of God; My heart is the dungeon of darkness,

Where I shut them for breaking a rule;

My frown is sufficient correction;

My love is the law of the school.

I shall leave the old house in the Autumn,
To traverse its threshold no more;