sure; and he was only induced to lay it up at night by his delight at the idea of coming up in the morning and surprising me by playing on it before I got up. got up. In the morning at daylight I was called to his bedside. The next day, I followed him to his grave! You cannot guess how golden and lovely his long hair (never cut) looked in the coffin. Pickie was five years old last March. So much grace and wit and poetry were rarely or never blended in so young a child, and to us his form and features were the perfection of beauty. We can never have another child, and life cannot be long enough to efface, though it will temper this sorrow. It differs in kind as well as degree from all that we have hitherto experienced. HE WORRIED ABOUT IT The sun's heat will give out in ten million years more- It will sure give out then, if it doesn't before- It will surely give out, so the scientists said In all scientifical books he had read, And the whole boundless universe then will be dead- And some day the earth will fall into the sun- Just as sure and as straight as if shot from a gun- "When strong gravitation unbuckles her straps, And the earth will become much too small for the race- When we'll pay thirty dollars an inch for pure space- The earth will be crowded so much, without doubt, out, Nor room for one's thoughts to wander about And he worried about it. And the Gulf Stream will curve, and New England grow torrider And he worried about it Than was ever the climate of southernmost Florida And he worried about it. Our ice crop will be knocked into small smithereens, And in less than ten thousand years, there's no doubtAnd he worried about it Our supply of lumber and coal will give out— And he worried about it. Just then the ice age will return cold and raw, awe, As if vainly beseeching a general thaw And he worried about it. His wife took in washing-half a dollar a day He didn't worry about it His daughter sewed shirts, the rude grocer to pay--- While his wife beat her tireless rub-a-dub-dub Sam Walter Foss. THE LORD'S PRAYER After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. Matthew vi 9-13. WHERE THE RAINBOW NEVER FADES It cannot be that the earth is man's only abiding place. It cannot be that our life is a mere bubble cast up by eternity to float a moment on its waves and then sink into nothingness. Else why is it that the glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our heart are forever wandering unsatisfied? Why is it that all the stars that hold their festival around the midnight throne are set above the grasp of our limited faculties, forever mocking us with their unapproachable glory? And, finally, why is it that bright forms of human beauty presented to our view are taken from us, leaving the thousand streams of our affections to flow back in Alpine torrents upon our hearts? There is a realm where the rainbow never fades; where the stars will be spread out before us like islands that slumber in the ocean, and where the beautiful beings which now pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever. George D. Prentice in "Man's Higher Destiny." THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the Valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Someone had blundered; Cannon to right of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. Flashed all their sabres bare, All the world wondered; Plunged in the battery smoke, Reeled from the sabre stroke Shattered and sundered; Cannon to right of them, Cannon behind them Volleyed and thundered; When can their glory fade? Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred! Alfred Tennyson. |