ASPIRATION.

BY AXEL EMIL GIBSON.

Deep in the human breast
Within life's sacred portal,
Where discords are at rest
In harmonies immortal;
Where hopes and fears
And smiles and tears

In minor keys are blended,
And peace, sweet dove,
On wings of love

Has from on high descended;
There, in immortal youth,
By holy genii guided,

The heart will find the truth
Of life and death confided.

Whatever be the heights
To which the man aspires;
His path must draw its light
From Love's undying fires,

Must feel the needs where duty leads

In quest of the ideal,

And in the stress

Of usefulness

Find knowledge of the real.

Thus, in unfading youth,

By holy genii guided,

The man will find the truth

Of life and death confided.

When in the storms of life The mind with flagging power Seeks from its daily strife Some silent, peaceful hourIt finds the source

From whence it pours

A stream of life undying,
Where visions bright

In matchless light

From heart to heart are flying.
There, in the sphere of youth,
By holy genii guided,

The man will find the truth
Of life and death confided.

O, soul, enwrapt in love
And taught by heavenly vision,
Accept from heights above
Thy sacred, heartfelt mission;
To generate

Hope, Love, and Faith

In human thought and action,

And place the true

If old or new

Above all creed and faction;
For thus, in deathless youth,
By holy genii guided,

The mind will find the truth
Of life and death confided.

Adversity's cold clutch

Must not thy zeal diminish
Nor take thy warm heart-touch
From any work thou finish.
As tides and floods

Of passing moods

Which sweep through mind's dominion

Must in the soul

Their final goal

Attain on love-wrought pinions.

Hence, as you soar in youth,

By holy genii guided,

Thy mind shall find the truth
Of life and death confided.

Seek everywhere for truth-
Not but in Beauty's bowers;
If roughly paved or smooth,
If strewn by thorns or flowers,
Thy path pursue,

Thy duty do

Through scenes of pains or pleasures,

And Truth some day

Shall for thee lay

Her undecaying treasures,

While borne on wings of youth,

By holy genii guided,

Thy soul shall find the truth

Of life and death confided.

The blade of grass-the bud upon the rose tree
Are links in Life's great chain of mystery,
The life that in them flows is thy life, too,
And all is fair and all divinely good,
And every link the band of brotherhood.

HARRY T. FEE.

"BECAUSE you find a thing very difficult, do not at once conclude that no man can master it. But whatever you observe proper and practicable by another, believe likewise within your own power."-Marcus Aurelius.

HINTS OF THE NEW DAY.

BY J. H. A. MARSHALL.

The World dreams in the shadowy dawn of a New Day-a strong, fair dream of stupendous change.

Recent thought heaves under the impact of a new and revolutionary impulse.

The character of the subtile influence that is permeating all branches of speculation is somewhat a matter of conjecture, but that an overmastering principle has long been latent and now is active is shown by the gradual but certain undermining of standards considered, hitherto, as immutable as the stars.

Like mysterious writing on the wall comes the warning to the world of the downfall of empirical limitations, a downfall which, practically, is accomplished rather than imminent.

This overthrow of established criterions is not effected, it appears, in a destructive spirit, but is preliminary to rebuilding. Old codes and creeds have proven to be unequal to the ethical and scientific emergencies of a rapidly developing humanity; and their narrowness has become not merely unserviceable, but a menace to an expanding consciousness which reaching superior heights of understanding must needs find a wider field of action. To the unbiased observer this admission holds good for every definite direction of moral and mental growth.

It would seem that evolution is carried forward independently of human conscious effort; and new mental phases, inducing complementary experiences, are developed with much of the same inevitability as the child develops physical stature and wider intellectual interests.

Humanity is becoming prone to a detailed self-examination; is suspecting itself of possessing unguessed powers, and

cautiously experimenting with these, somewhat as a young bird essays the uses of its wings.

We may view humanity as a child of Nature barely coming to an age of clearer reason and higher responsibility. It has been a foolish, willful child, if the simile holds good, and has given Nature trouble enough by its perversity; but none the less the true mother loves and guides it, teaching it unswervingly the supreme law of its being, the law of the sovereign power of the Conscious Will.

Premonitory indications of the unfolding of this inherent power have expressed themselves in theories that treat of the natural sovereignty of mind over matter; and the world dreams of an exact science that will deal directly with causes rather than with effects.

In this connection come into existence a succession of strange cults and philosophies, floating upward as brilliant and as unstable as bubbles, and like them bursting quickly and irretrievably. They represent the first and ineffective strivings of a nascent faculty.

Notwithstanding the antics of visionaries and cranks, it has dawned upon many serious and clear thinkers that little independent knowledge can be gained from authoritative writings; the last page of human learning has been turned, and darkness is across it even as it was across the first. Despair often accompanies this conclusion; but in the reaction that follows, the mind rises into an unerring sense of the necessity for reliance on its own primal power of intuition. Opinions of others, even those opinions which are founded on experience and sincerity, are no longer satisfying; they serve as valuable guides oftentimes, but in themselves are as impotent to convey exact knowledge as is the finest description to convey a perfectly correct impression of the thing described. The mind has a new need-it is done with elementary learning and requires living knowledge obtained at first hand. It must identify itself with the object of its per