A CHURCHYARD WALK.

Then, quick forgetting the command

In life's exulting burst

Of early glee, let go my hand,
Joyous as at the first.

And now I did not check him more,
For, taught by Nature's face,
I had grown wiser than before,
Even in that moment's space :

She spread no funeral pall above

That patch of churchyard ground,

But the same azure vault of love
As hung o'er all around.

And white clouds o'er that spot would pass,
As freely as elsewhere;
The sunshine on no other grass

A richer hue might wear.

And formed from out that very mould
In which the dead did lie,
The daisy with its eye of gold
Looked up into the sky.

The rook was wheeling overhead,

Nor hastened to be gone;
The small bird did its glad notes shed,
Perched on a grey head-stone.

And God, I said, would never give
This light upon the earth,

Nor bid in childhood's heart to live

Those springs of gushing mirth,

199

SIC VITA.

A PEACEFUL OLD AGE.

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 was 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 decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
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.

SIC VITA.

LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh Spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
E'en such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to-night.

The wind blows out; the bubble dies;
The spring entombed in Autumn lies;
The dew dries up; the star is shot;,
The flight is past-and man forgot.

CC

201

"CHARITY NEVER FAILETH.”

OUR great dramatist, tracing the course of human life through its seven ages, tells us that the

"Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion:

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

Such, however, is not the Christian theory of old age. To the mere worldling, however lofty his genius, old age may be this, and nothing more, or better, than this. But to the believer, earth recedes only that heaven may draw near; the shadows of life's evening gather over the landscape only that the dawn of an eternal day may brighten around us, and "the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved" to be exchanged for the mansion not "made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Charity never faileth." Amidst the chills and infirmities of extreme old age the flame of love may burn warm and bright as ever, and having this the man cannot be “ sans everything," for love is its own exceeding great reward.

66

Amongst the traditions of the Apostolic Church there is none more touching or beautiful than that which describes the last scene in the long life of the Beloved Disciple. When all power to labour for Christ was gone, no longer able to teach, too weak even to stand, the spirit still retained its capacity to love. Carried into the church by the disciples, he was wont to repeat, without change or variation, the command which he himself had received from the Master, MY LITTLE CHILDREN, LOVE ONE ANOTHER. And on being asked why he always repeated the same thing, he replied, that if this was well learned all was learned.