333 WHO IS THY NEIGHBOUR. Thy neighbour? Yonder toiling slave, Whose thoughts are all beyond the grave, Where'ere thou meet'st a human form, Oh pass not, pass not heedless by: Methinks if you would know, How visitations of calamity Affect the pious soul, 'tis shown you there! The rolling moon! I watched it as it came, And deemed the deep opaque would blot her beams. SOUTHEY. Where is the Enemy? L. M. CHILD says "I have somewhere read of a regiment ordered to march into a small town, and take it. I think it was in the Tyrol but wherever it was, it chanced that the place was settled by a colony who believed the Gospel of Christ, and proved their faith by works. A courier from a neighbouring village informed them that troops were advancing to take the town. They quietly answered" If they will take it, they must." Soldiers soon came riding in, with colours flying, and fifes piping their shrill defiance. They looked round for an enemy, and saw the farmer at his plough, the blacksmith at his anvil, and the women at their churns and spinning-wheels. Babies crowed to hear the music, and boys ran out to see the pretty trainers, with feathers and bright buttons, "the harlequins of the nineteenth century." Of course none of these were in a proper position to be shot at. "Where are your soldiers?" they asked, "we have none," was the brief reply.-" But we have come to take the town." "Well friends it lies before you."-" But is there nobody here to fight?"—No, we are all Christians." Here was an emergency altogether unprovided for: a sort of resistance which no bullet could hit a fortress perfectly bomb-proof. The commander was perplexed. "If there is nobody to fight with, of course we cannot fight," said he, "It is impossible to take such a town as this." So he ordered the horses heads to be turned about, and they carried the human animals out of the village as guiltless as they entered, and perchance somewhat wiser. This experiment on a small scale, indicates how easy it would be to dispense with armies and navies if men only had faith in the religion they profess to believe. Clarkson at Wadesmill. LUCY BARTON. A WANDERER by the road-way side, Though rich the landscape, hill and plain One hand holds fast his bridle rein, All is forgotten or unknown, * Near half a century hath flown; More bent in form, more dim of eye, And joy in his age cannot chill,— His glorious goal hath won! 36 THE WORTH OF HOURS. Not vainly has he watched the ark, Che Worth of Bours. BELIEVE not that your inner eye For every man's weak self, alas! Makes him to see them, while they pass, As through a dim or tinted glass. But if in earnest care you would Mete out to each its part of good, Those surely are not fairly spent, That leave your spirit bowed and bent, In sad unrest and ill-content: And more though, free from seeming harm, If then a painful sense comes on Of something wholly lost and gone, Vainly enjoyed or vainly done; Of something from your being's chain Broke off, nor to be linked again By all mere memory can retain, IN MEMORIAM. Upon your heart this truth may rise : So should we live that every hour That every thought and every deed, Esteeming sorrow, whose employ R. M. MILNES. In Memoriam. THE path by which we twain did go, And we with singing cheered the way, And glad at heart from May to May: But where the path we walked, began 37 |