THE EARNEST STUDENT.

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THE EARNEST STUDENT.

"INFINITE TRUTH, the life of my desires,
Come from the sky, and join Thyself to me:
I'm tired with hearing, and this reading tires;
But never tired of telling Thee,

'Tis Thy fair face alone my spirit burns to see.

"Speak to my soul, alone; no other hand
Shall mark my path out with delusive art:
All nature, silent in His presence stand;
Creatures, be dumb at His command,

And leave His single voice to whisper to my heart.

"Retire, my soul, within thyself retire,
Away from sense and every outward show:
Now let my thoughts to loftier themes aspire;
My knowledge now on wheels of fire

May mount and spread above, surveying all below."

The LORD grows lavish of his heavenly light,
And pours whole floods on such a mind as this-
Fled from the eyes, she gains a piercing sight,
She dives into the infinite,

And sees unutterable things in that unknown abyss.

DRIFTING DOWNWARD.

"As a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not it is for his life.”—Prov. vii. 23.

LEANING on the bank of the majestic river a few miles above Niagara, a little boat was floating on a summer's day. A mother plied her industry in a neighbouring field. Her daughter, too young yet for useful labour, strolled from her side to the water's edge. The child leaped into the boat. It moved with her weight. The sensation was pleasant. Softly the boat glided down on the soft bosom of the waters. More and more pleasant were the sensations of the child. The trees on the shore were moving past in rows. The sunbeams glittered on the water, scarcely broken by the ripple of the stream. Softly and silently, but with ever-growing speed, the tiny vessel shot down the river with its glad unconscious freight. The mother raised her bended back and looked. She saw her child carried quickly by the current toward the cataract. She screamed, and ran. She plunged into the water. She ventured far, but failed.

LINES, WRITTEN IN EARLY YOUTH.

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The boat is caught in the foaming rapids-it is carried over the precipice! The mother's treasure is crushed to atoms, and mingles with the spray that curls above Niagara. This is not a fiction; it is a fact reported in the newspapers of the day. But, though itself a substantive event, it serves also as a mirror to see the shadows of others in. The image that you see glancing in the glass is real. It is not single. It may be seen, thousand upon thousand, stretching away in reduplicating rows. Pleasant to the unconscious youth are the merry cup and the merry company. Lightly and happily he glides along. After a little, the motion becomes uneasy. It is jolting, jumbling, sickly. He would fain escape now. Vain effort! He is rocked awhile in the rapids, and then sucked into the abyss.

LINES, WRITTEN IN EARLY YOUTH.

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

K

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure—
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If I these thoughts may not prevent,
If such be of my creed the plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

DAVID AND JONATHAN.

He saw his comely face,

Where love and reverence so well mingled were;
And head, already crowned with golden hair :
He saw what mildness his bold spirit did tame,
Gentler than light, yet powerful as a flame :
He saw his valour, by their safety proved;
He saw all this, and as he saw he loved.

What art thou, Love! thou great, mysterious thing!
From what hid stock does thy strange nature spring?
'Tis thou that mov'st the world through every part,
And hold'st the vast frame close, that nothing start
From the due place and office first ordained;
By thee were all things made, and are sustained;

"And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle."-1 Sam. xviii. 4.