LOVE STRONG IN DEATH.

THE brother of two sisters
Drew painfully his breath;
And a strange fear came o'er him,
For love was strong in death.
The fire of fatal fever

Burned darkly on his cheek;
And often to his mother

He spake, or tried to speak.

He said, "The quiet moonlight,
Beneath the shadowed hill,
Seemed dreaming of good angels,
While all the woods were still:

I felt as if from slumber

I never could awake:

Oh, mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!

"A cold, dead weight is on me,-
A heavy weight, like lead;
My hands and feet seem sinking
Quite through my little bed!
I am so tired and weary,

With weariness I ache:

Oh, mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!

"Some little token give me,
That I may kiss in sleep,
To make me feel I'm near you,
And bless you, though I weep.
My sisters say I'm better-

But, then, their heads they shake:
Oh, mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!

"Why can't I see the poplars,
Why can't I see the hill,
Where, dreaming of good angels,
The moonbeams lay so still?
Why can't I see you, mother?
I surely am awake:

Oh, haste, and give me something
To cherish for your sake!"

The little bosom heaves not:
The fire hath left his cheek:

The one chord is it broken?

The strong chord - could it break?

Ah, yes! the loving spirit

Hath winged its flight away!

The mother and two sisters

Look down on lifeless clay.

EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

WEEP NOT FOR HER.

WEEP not for her! O she was far too fair,

Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth! The sinless glory, and the golden air

Of Zion, seemed to claim her from her birth! A spirit wandering from its native zone, Which, soon discovering, took her for its own: Weep not for her!

Weep not for her!-Her span was like the sky, Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and

bright;

Like flowers that know not what it is to die;
Like long-link'd shadeless months of Polar light;
Like music floating o'er a waveless lake,
While Echo answers from the flowery brake:
Weep not for her!

TO A DEAD CHILD.

CHILD of a day, thou knowest not
The tears that overflow thy urn,

The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knowest, couldst return!

And why the wish? The pure and blest
Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep;

O peaceful night! O envied rest!

Thou wilt not ever see her weep.

THE LOST JEWEL.

DR. PAYSON, when engaged in paying pastoral visits to his spiritual flock, happened one day to enter "the house of mourning," and there he found a disconsolate mother, whose darling child had just been "taken from the evil to come," whom he thus addressed: "Suppose, now, some one was making a beautiful crown for you to wear; and you knew it was for you, and that you was to receive it and wear it as soon as it should be done. Now, if the maker of it were to come, and, in order to make the crown more beautiful and splendid, were to take some of your jewels to put into it, should you be sorrowful and unhappy because they were taken away for a little while, when you knew they were gone to make up your

crown?"

THE RECEPTION OF TRIALS.

THE spirit in which we receive trials either increases or diminishes their bitterness; fortitude and resignation disarm them of their sharpest darts, while anger and vindictiveness only augment their poignancy.

THE DYING CHILD TO ITS MOTHER.

CEASE here longer to detain me,
Fondest mother, drowned in woe;

Now thy kind caresses pain me;

Morn advances

let me go.

See yon orient streak appearing,
Harbinger of endless day;
Hark! a voice, the darkness cheering,
Calls my new-born soul away.

Lately launched, a trembling stranger, On the world's wild, boisterous flood; Pierced with sorrows, tossed with danger, Gladly I return to God.

Now

my cries shall cease to grieve thee; Now my trembling heart find rest; Kinder arms than thine receive me; Softer pillow than thy breast.

Weep not o'er these eyes that languish,
Upward turning toward their home;
Raptured they'll forget all anguish,
While they wait to see thee come.