Abide ye in my love.-JESUS.

(JOHN XV. 9.)

I hoard a little spring of secret tears,

For thee, poor bird; thy death-blow was my crime:
From the far past it has flowed on for years;

It never dries; it brims at swallow time.
No kindly voice within me took thy part
Till I stood o'er thy last faint fluttering.
Since then methinks I have a gentler heart,
And gaze with pity on all wounded wings.
Full oft the vision of thy fallen head,
Twittering in highway dust, appeals to me.
Thy helpless form, as when I struck thee dead,
Drops out from every swallow flight I see.
I would not have thy airy spirit laid,

I seem to love the little ghost I made.

CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER

BUT

OUT do you say, "Oh! tell me how to get this love?" I tell you, you have the first white spark of it. If you really love at all, if you love a dog, you have that in your heart which may grow to be as mighty as the love of the first archangel. If I can love that I do love with the love which is life, with a true heart, fervently, as I open my heart to this grace and goodness of loving, the breath of heaven will draw through and fan the flame, kindling this way and that, until the whole soul is on fire with a love that warms and energizes whatever it touches, like the pure sun.

ROBERT COLLYER

Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house,

And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may

lay her young,

Even thine altars, O Lord of hosts,

My King, and my God.

PSALM lxxxiv. 3.

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

LOWELL

HE celebrated Russian novelist, Turgenieff, tells a most touching incident from his own life, which awakened in him sentiments that have colored all his writings with a deep and tender feeling. When Turgenieff was a boy of ten his father took him out one day bird-shooting. As they tramped across the brown stubble, a golden pheasant rose with a low whirr from the ground at his feet, and, with the joy of a sportsman throbbing through his veins, he raised his gun and fired, wild with excitement when the creature fell fluttering at his side. Life was ebbing fast but the instinct of the mother was stronger than death itself, and with a feeble flutter of her wings the mother bird reached the nest where her young brood were huddled, unconscious of danger. Then, with such a look of pleading and reproach that his heart stood still

at the ruin he had wrought,—and never to his dying day did he forget the feeling of cruelty and guilt that came to him in that moment, — the little brown head toppled over, and only the dead body of the mother shielded her nestlings. "Father, Father," he cried, "what have I done?" as he turned his horror-stricken face to his father. But not to his father's eye had this little tragedy been enacted, and he said: "Well done, my son; that was well done for your first shot. You will soon be a fine sportsmán." "Never, Father; never again shall I destroy any living creature. If that is sport I will have none of it. Life is more beautiful to me than death, and since I cannot give life, I will not take it." And so, instead of putting into the hands of the child a gun or any other weapon that may be instrumental in crippling, torturing, or taking the life of even a single animal, I would give him the field-glass and the camera, and send him out to be a friend to the animals, to observe and study their characteristics, their habits, to learn from them those wonderful lessons that can be learned, and thus have his whole nature expand in admiration and love and care for them, and become thereby the truly manly and princely type of man.

RALPH WALDO TRINE

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse?
Unarmed faced danger with a heart of trust?

O, be

my

friend, and teach me to be thine!

EMERSON

Week Twenty-first

PROVE THY SOUL IN THY

LIFE

Prelude

COURAGE

True repentance is not a backward-looking despair, but a forward-looking courage and hopeful endeavor.

REV. DR. PUTNAM

Courage, O heart, and be not "backward-look ing"!

Let dull despair no longer with thee stay.
Brood not over thy yesterday's sad failure:
Live in the glad, all-possible To-day!

Waste not thine energies in vain regretting,
But strive thy present duties to fulfil.
The Past is dead, it is beyond recalling,
But we may mould the future as we will.

And we may profit by each sad experience,
May let each failure be a stepping-stone
To something that is higher, purer, nobler,
And thus we may be able to atone.

Life is so full of deep and tender meaning,
Such glorious possibilities abound,

That every hopeful, every true endeavor

With good and grand results may yet be crowned.

Now, God be thanked that unto us is given

A new, fresh field of action every day.

Then courage, heart, and be not "backwardlooking,"

But for new strength of purpose humbly pray.

EMMA ENDICOTT HICKS