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67. AFFLICTION, Eucharist of. Above the seas of gold and glass

The Christ, transfigured, stands to-day; Below, in troubled currents, pass

The tidal fates of man away. Through that environed blessedness Our sorrow cannot wholly rise, Nor his swift sympathy redress

The anguish that in Nature lies.

Yet mindful from his banquet sends
The guest of God a cup of wine,
And shares a morsel with his friends,
Who, wondering, wait without the shrine.
Julia Ward Howe.

68. AFFLICTION, Furnace of.

He that from dross would win the precious

ore,

Bends o'er the crucible an earnest eye,
The subtle, searching process to explore,

Lest the one brilliant moment should pass
When in the molten silver's virgin mass, [by,
He meets his pictured face as in a glass.
Thus in God's furnace are his children tried;
Thrice happy they who to the end endure!
But who the fiery trial may abide?

Who from the crucible come forth so pure, That He, whose eyes of flame look through the whole,

May see His image perfect in the soul?

Not with an evanescent glimpse alone,
As in that mirror, the refiner's face,
But, stampt with heaven's broad signet, there
be shown
[grace,-
Immanuel's features, full of truth and
And round that seal of love this motto be,
"Not for a moment, but eternity!"
James Montgomery.

69. AFFLICTION, Heroism under.

My rest is in heaven, my rest is not here, Then why should I murmur when trials are near!

[come

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oppose,

Let doubt, then, and danger my progress
[close;
They only make heaven more sweet at the
Come joy or come sorrow, whate'er may befall,
An hour with my God will make up for it
all.

A scrip on my back, and a staff in my hand,
I march on in haste through an enemy's land;
The road may be rough, but it cannot be
long,

And I'll smooth it with hope, and cheer it
with song.
H. F. Lyte.

70. AFFLICTION, Jesu in.
Jesu is in my heart, His sacred name
Is deeply carved there; but the other week
E'en all to pieces; which I went to seek:
A great affliction broke the little frame,
And first I found the corner where was J
After where was Es, and next where u, was
When I had got these parcels, instantly
graved.
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart He was I case you,
And to my whole is JESU.
George Herbert.

71. AFFLICTION, Refuge in.
In the dark winter of affliction's hour,
When summer friends and pleasures haste
away,
[each power
And the wreck'd heart perceives how frail
It made a refuge, and believed a stay;
When man all wild and weak is seen to be-
There's none like Thee, O Lord! there's none
like Thee!

Thou in adversity canst be a sun;
Thou hast a healing balm, a sheltering tower,
The peace, the truth, the life, the love of
One,
[power!
Nor wound, nor grief, nor storm can over-
Gifts of a King; gifts frequent and yet free-
There's none like thee, O Lord! none, none
like thee! Maria J. Jewsbury.

72. AFFLICTION, Welcoming.
Come then, Affliction, if my Father bids,
And be my frowning friend: a friend that
frowns

Is better than a smiling enemy.
[rain,
We welcome clouds that bring the former
Though they the present prospect blacken
round,

That, by their stores enriched, the earth may
And shade the beauties of the opening year,

yield

A fruitful summer and a plenteous crop.
Charles Swaine.

73. AGENCY, Free.
Man shall be blessed, as far as man permits.
Not man alone-all rationals, Heaven arms
With an illustrious, but tremendous power
To counteract its own most gracious ends;
And this, of strict necessity, not choice.
That power denied, men, angels, were no

more

But passive engines, void of praise or blame. | O'er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom,
A nature rational implies the power

Of being blessed or wretched, as we please-
Else idle reason would have nought to do;
And he that would be barred capacity
Of pain, courts incapacity of bliss. [doom;
Heaven wills our happiness-allows our
Invites us ardently, but not compels,
Heaven but persuades-almighty man de-
Man is the maker of immortal fates. [crees.
Edward Young.

74. AGE, Approach of.

Six years had passed, and forty ere the six,
When Time began to play his usual tricks;
The locks once comely in a virgin's sight,
Locks of pure brown, displayed the en-
croaching white;

The blood, once fervid, now to cool began,
And Time's strong pressure to subdue the
I rode or walked as I was wont before, [man.
But now the bounding spirit was no more;
A moderate pace would now my body heat,
A walk of moderate length distress my feet.
I showed my stranger guest those hills sub-
lime,
[climb."
But said, "The view is poor, we need not
At a friend's mansion I began to dread
The cold neat parlor, and the gay glazed
At home I felt a more decided taste, [bed;
And must have all things in my order placed.
I ceased to hunt; my horses pleased me less,
My dinner more; I learned to play at chess.
I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute
Was disappointed that I did not shoot.
My morning walks I now could bear to lose,
And blessed the shower that gave me not to
In fact, I felt a languor stealing on; [choose.
The active arm, the agile hand, were gone;
Small daily actions into habits grew,
And new dislike to forms and fashions new.
I loved my trees in order to dispose;
I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose;
Told the same story oft,-in short, began to
George Crabbe.

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Where many a splendor finds its tomb,
Many spent fames and fallen mights,-
The one or two immortal lights,
Rise slowly up into the sky
To shine there everlastingly,
Like stars over the bounding hill,
The epoch ends, the world is still.
Matthew Arnold.

76. AGE, The Golden.

The golden age was first; when man, yet No rule but uncorrupted reason knew; [new, And with a native bent did good pursue; Unforc'd by punishment, unaw'd by fear, His words were simple, and his soul sincere. Needless was written law, where none opprest;

The law of man was written in his breast. No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd;

No court erected yet, nor cause was heard ; But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.

The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow.
Content with food, which nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed;
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.
The flowers, unsown, in fields and meadows
reign'd,
[tain'd.
And western winds immortal spring main-
In following years the bearded corn ensu'd
From earth unask'd, nor was the earth re-
new'd.

From veins of valleys, milk and nectar broke, And honey sweating through the pores of oak. Ovid, tr. by John Dryden.

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No rights of hospitality remain ;

The guest, by him who harbor'd him, is slain;
The son-in-law pursues the father's life,
The wife her husband murders-he the wife.
The step-dame poison for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns;
And Justice, here opprest, to heaven returns.
Ovid, tr. by John Dryden.

78. AGE, The New.
Thundering and bursting
In torrents, in waves,—
Carolling and shouting
Over tombs, amid graves,-
See on the cumbered plain
Clearing a stage,
Scattering the past about,
Comes the new age!
Bards make new poems,
Thinkers new schools,
Statesmen new systems,

Critics new rules!

All things begin again;
Life is their prize;

Earth with their deeds they fill,

Fill with their cries! Matthew Arnold.

79. AGE, The Silver.

But when good Saturn, banish'd from above,
Was driven to hell, the world was under Jove.
Succeeding times a silver age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
Then Summer, Autumn, Winter did appear;
And Spring was but a season of the year.
The sun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted and enlarged the bad.
Then air with sultry heats began to glow,
The wings of winds were clogged with ice
and snow;

And shivering mortals, into houses driven,
Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven.
Those houses, then, were caves, or homely
sheds,
[beds.
With twining oziers fenc'd, and moss their
Then ploughs, for seeds, their fruitful fur-
rows broke,

And oxen labor'd first beneath the yoke.
To this next came in course the brazen age:
A warlike offspring prompt to bloody rage,
Not impious yet.

Ovid, tr. by John Dryden.

80. AGE, Wisdom of.
The seas are quiet when the winds are o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more!
For then we know how vain it is to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries:
The soul's dark cottage, battered and de-
cayed,
[has made.
Lets in new light through chinks that time
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home;

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,

That stand upon the threshold of the new. Edmund Waller.

81. AGE, Youth and.

When I was young! Ah, woful When!
Ah, for the change 'twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house, not built with hands,
This body, that does me grievous wrong,
O'er air cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flushed along!
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide.

Naught cared this body for wind or weather, When Youth and I lived in't together.

Ere I was old! Ah, woful Ere!

Which tells me Youth's no longer here.
Oh Youth! For years so many and sweet
'Tis known that thou and I were one;
I'll think it but a fond conceit;
It cannot be that thou art gone!
Thy vesper bell hath not yet tolled;
And thou wert aye a masker bold.
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size;
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!.
Life is but thought; so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve,
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,

When we are old:

That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking leave;
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismissed,
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

82. AGED, Absurdities of the. Absurd longevity! More, more, it cries; More life, more wealth, more trash of every kind. [fails? And wherefore mad for more, when relish Object and appetite must club for joyBaubles, I mean, that strike us from without. Shall folly labor hard to mend the bow, While Nature is relaxing every string? Ask thought for joy: grow rich, and hoard within.

[cease,

Think you the soul, when this life's rattles
Has nothing of more manly to succeed?
Contract the taste immortal; learn e'en now
To relish what alone subsists hereafter.
Divine or none, henceforth, your joys forever.
Of age, the glory is to wish to die:
That wish is praise and promise; it applauds
Past life, and promises our future bliss.
What weakness see not children in their sires!

Grand-climacterical absurdities!
Gray-haired authority, to faults of youth,
How shocking! it makes folly thrice a fool;
And our first childhood might our last despise.
Peace and esteem is all that age can hope:
Nothing but wisdom gives the first; the last,
Nothing but the repute of being wise.
Folly bars both: our age is quite undone.
What folly can be ranker? Like our shad-
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines. [ows,
No wish should loiter, then, this side the
grave.
[knell
Our hearts should leave the world before the
Calls for our carcasses to mend the soil:
Enough to live in tempest, die in port.
Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat
Defects of judgment and the will subdue;
Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore
Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon,
And put good works on board, and wait the
wind

That shortly blows us into worlds unknown:
If unconsidered, too, a dreadful scene!
Edward Young.
83. AGED, Death Song for the.
In age and feebleness extreme
Who shall a sinful worm redeem?
Jesus, my only hope thou art,
Strength of my failing flesh and heart;
Oh, could I catch a smile from Thee,
And drop into eternity! Charles Wesley.

84. AGED, Flattery of the.

Here is one that wishes to live longer;
Feels not his gout, nor palsy; feigns himself
Younger by scores of years; flatters his age
With confident belying, with hopes he may
With charms, like Eson, have his youth re-
stored;

And with those thoughts so battens, as if fate
Would be as easily cheated on as he.

Ben Jonson.

85. AGED, Happiness of the. Behold a patriarch of years, who leaneth on the staff of religion;

His heart is fresh, quick to feel, a bursting fount of generosity;

He, playful in his wisdom, is gladdened in his son's first love;

Lofty aspirations, deep affections, holy hopes, are his delight;

His abhorrence is to strip from life its charitable garment of ideal.

The shrewd world laughed at him for honesty,

the vain world mouthed at him for honor, The false world hated him for truth, the cold

world despised him for affection. [heart, Still he kept his treasure, the warm and noble And in that happy old man survive the child and lover. M. F. Tupper.

86. AGRICULTURE, Nobility of. In ancient times, the sacred plough employed The kings and awful fathers of mankind. And some, with whom compared your insect Are but the beings of a summer's day, [tribes Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm

Of mighty war, then, with unwearied hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized
The plough, and greatly independent lived.
James Thomson.

87. AGRICULTURE, Prayerful.
First offer incense; then thy field and meads
Shall smile and smell the better by thy beads;
The spangling dew dreg'd o'er the grasse
Turn'd all to mell and manna there for thee.
shall be
Butter of amber, cream, and wine, and oil
Wod'st thou to sincere silver turn thy mold?
Shall run, and rivers, all throughout thy soyl
Pray once, twice pray, and turn thy ground
to gold.
Robert Herrick.

88. AGRICULTURE, Treasure of. A vintner at the point of death, Spake to his sons with parting breath: "A treasure in our vineyard lies. Dig for it!"-"Say, where is the prize?" Aloud they to their father cried.

66

'Dig, dig!" he said, when lo! he died. Ere in his grave he long had lain,

They searched and dug with might and main.
With spade, and mattock, and with hoe
The vineyard o'er and o'er they throw.
No clod escaped their zealous toil,
E'en through a sieve they passed the soil,
And drew the rakes across, around,
For ev'ry stone upon the ground;
But of the treasure saw no trace;
Each thought 'twas but a wild-goose chase.
But scarce the sun its yearly round
Had made, when they with wonder found
Each vine-tree bore a three-fold prize.
Then grew, at length, the children wise,
And, year on year revolving round,
Dug greater treasures from the ground.
Gottfried August Bürger.

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From the Latin, tr. by Horatius Bonar. 91. ALLOTMENT, Diversities of

Another feature in the ways of God,
That wondrous seemed, and made some men
complain,

Was the unequal gift of worldly things.
Great was the difference, indeed, of men
Externally, from beggar to the prince.
The highest take, and lowest-and conceive
The scale between. A noble of the earth,
One of its great, in splendid mansion dwelt;
Was robed in silk and gold, and every day
Fared sumptuously; was titled, honored,
served.

Thousands his nod awaited, and his will
For law received: whole provinces his march
Attended, and his chariot drew, or on
Their shoulders bore aloft the precious man.
Millions, abased, fell prostrate at his feet;
And millions more thundered adoring praise.
As far as eye could reach, he called the land
His own, and added yearly to his fields.
Like tree that of the soil took healthy root,
He grew on every side, and towered on high,
And over half a nation shadowing wide,
He spread his ample boughs; air, earth, and
Nature entire, the brute, and rational, [sea,
To please him ministered, and vied among
Themselves, who most should his desires pre-
vent,

Watching the moving of his rising thoughts
Attentively, and hasting to fulfil.
His palace rose and kissed the gorgeous
clouds;
[sprung;
Streams bent their music to his will; trees
The naked waste put on luxuriant robes;
And plains of happy cottages cast out
Their tenants, and became a hunting-field.
Before him bowed the distant isles, with fruits
And spices rare; the south her treasures
brought;

The east and west sent; and the frigid north
Came with her offering of glossy furs.
Musicians soothed his car with airs select;
Beauty held out her arms; and every man

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Of cunning skill, and curious device,
And endless multitudes of liveried wights,
His pleasure waited with obsequious look.
And when the wants of nature were supplied,
And commonplace extravagances filled,
Beyond their asking; and caprice itself,
In all its zig-zag appetites, gorged full,
The man new wants and new expenses
planned:

Nor planned alone: wise, learned, sober men,
Of cogitation deep, took up his case,
And planned for him new modes of folly
wild;
[means
Contrived new wishes, wants, and wondrous
Of spending with dispatch: yet after all,
His fields extended still, his riches grew,
And what seemed splendor infinite, increased.
So lavishly upon a single man

Did Providence his bounties daily shower.

Turn now thine eye, and look on poverty!
Look on the lowest of her ragged sons;
We find him by the way, sitting in dust;
He has no bread to eat, no tongue to ask;
No limbs to walk; no home, no house, no
friend.

Observe his goblin cheek; his wretched eye;
See how his hand, if any hand he has,
Involuntarily opens, and trembles forth,
As comes the traveller's foot; and hear his

groan,

His long and lamentable groan, announce
The want that gnaws within; severely now,
The sun scorches and burns his old bald head;
The frost now glues him to the chilly earth;
On him hail, rain, and tempest rudely beat;
And all the winds of heaven, in jocular mood,
Sport with his withered rags, that, tossed
Display his nakedness to passers by, [about,
And grievously burlesque the human form.
Observe him yet more narrowly: his limbs,
With palsy shaken, about him blasted lie;
And all his flesh is full of putrid sores,
And noisome wounds, his bones of racking
pains.

Strange vesture this for an immortal soul!
Strange retinue to wait a lord of earth!
It seems as Nature, in some surly mood,
After debate and musing long, had tried
How vile and miserable thing her hand
Could fabricate, then made this meagre man :
A sight so full of perfect misery,
That passengers their faces turned away,
And hasted to be gone; and delicate
And tender woman took another path.

This great disparity of outward things
Taught many lessons; but this taught in chief,
Though learned by few: that God no value
set,
[kind:
That man should none, on goods of worldly
On transitory, frail, external things,
Of migratory, ever-changing sort;
And further taught, that in the soul alone,
The thinking, reasonable, willing soul,
God placed the total excellence of man;
And meant him evermore to seek it there.
Robert Pollok.

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