You can get to any station that is on life's schedule seen
If there's fire beneath the boiler of ambition's strong machine,
And you'll reach a place called Flushtown at a rate of speed
that's grand,

If for all the slippery places you've a good supply of sand.
In Richmond (Ind.) Register.

AWAY

I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away!

With a cheery smile and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,

And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.

And you-oh, you, who the wildest yearr
For the old-time step and the glad return-

Think of him faring on, as dear

In the love of There as the love of Here;

And loyal still, as he gave the blows

Of his warrior strength to his country's foes

Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave

To simple things; where the violets grew
Pure as the eyes they were likened to,
The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed;

When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred
Was dear to him as the mocking-bird;

And he pitied as much as a man in pain
A writhing honey-bee wet with rain.

Think of him still as the same, I say;
He is not dead-he is just-away!

James Whitcomb Riley.

A PSALM OF LIFE

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!

Heart within and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry W. Longfellow.

A MEMORIAL DAY VISION

The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sound of preparation-the music of the boisterous drums, the silver voices of the heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators, we see the pale faces of women and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking

for the last time in quiet, woody places with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing; and some are talking with wives and endeavoring, with brave words spoken in the old tones, to drive away the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms-standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves-she answers by holding high in her loving hands the child. He is gone, and forever.

We see them all as they march proudly away under the Aaunting flags, keeping time to the wild, grand music of war-marching down the streets of the great cities-through the towns and across the prairies-down to the fields of glory, to do and die for the eternal right. We go with them one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain, on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in the ravines running with bloodin the furrows of old fields. We are with them between the contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn with shells in the trenches of forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men became iron with nerves of steel. We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine, but human speech can never tell what they endured. We are home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes

died. We look. Instead of salves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction block, the slave pen and the whipping post, and we see homes and firesides and schoolhouses and books, and where all was want and crime, and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free. These heroes are dead. They died for liberty-they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other wars-they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death.

I have one sentiment for the soldier, living and deadcheers for the living and tears for the dead.

Robert G. Ingersoll.

THE FOOTPATH TO PEACE

A Thought for the Opening Year

To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can with body and with spirit, in God's out-ofdoors-these are little guide-posts on the footpath to peace. Henry Van Dyke.