And everlasting motion; not in vain,

By day or starlight, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood, didst thou intertwine for me

The passions which build up a human soul."

This is the Spirit that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things.

It is in such strains that Wordsworth becomes the singer and teacher of our own restless, excited, and materialistic age; and taking up, in its enduring power and popularity, his "Ode on the Immortality of the Soul," we may well substitute for the "recollections of early childhood" the "discoveries of modern science," and exclaim, without in the least depreciating their immense importance and practical value

"Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,

Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,

High instincts before which our mortal nature

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised;

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us-cherish—and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence: truths that wake
To perish never :

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor man, nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence, in a season of calm weather,

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither;

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

IX.

The Golden Treasury.

GLEANINGS.

IX.

The Golden Treasury.

GLEANINGS.

HE "Golden Treasury," is a collection of lyrics, which ought to be in every

one's house-choice lyrics of the last

400 years, ranging from about 1500 down to 1850, but not including the works of any living poet. In my reference and treatment I am to-night limited by certain considerations. the first place, I do not treat of anything in the pulpit which is not more or less of an

In

edifying" character; it must have something to point a moral, as well as to adorn a tale; it should rouse our aspirations, broaden our views, enrich our experiences of human life-or prompt hopeful and ennobling action; and of course a great deal of lyrical poetry in every age is not of this description.

Then the word "lyrical" limits us. "Lyric" means a short song, such as might be thrown off by a