47. A Lesson from "The Fruit of the Spirit"..............P. Garrett. 91

48. The Immortality of Love..............

49. The Path of Peace....

....................................... ......................... Isaac F. Shepard. 92

50. Blessed are They that Mourn.......................... W. C. Bryant. 93

.............

............

88. Aurelia's Unfortunate Young Man................... S. L. Clemens. 155

91. Nicholas Nickleby Leaving the Yorkshire School.... C. Dickens. 161

100

CHOICE SELECTIONS.

No. 16.

CLEAR THE WAY.-CHARLES MACKAY.

Men of thought, be up and stirring night and day:
Sow the seed-withdraw the curtain-clear the way!
Men of action, aid and cheer them, as ye may!
There's a fount about to stream,
There's a light about to beam,
There's a warmth about to glow,
There's a flower about to blow;

There's a midnight blackness changing into gray.
Men of thought and men of action, CLEAR THE WAY!

Once the welcome light has broken, who shall say
What the unimagined glories of the day?
What the evil that shall perish in its ray?
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men;
Aid it, paper; aid it, type;

Aid it, for the hour is ripe,

And our earnest must not slacken into play.
Men of thought and men of action, CLEAR THE WAY!

Lo! a cloud's about to vanish from the day;

And a brazen wrong to crumble into clay.
Lo! the right's about to conquer: clear the way!
With the right shall many more

Enter smiling at the door;
With the giant wrong shall fall
Many others, great and small,

That for ages long have held us for their prey.

Men of thought and men of action, CLEAR THE WAY!

7

JANE CONQUEST.

About the time of Christmas

(Not many months ago), When the sky was black

With wrath and rack,

And the earth was white with snow,

When loudly rang the tumult
Of winds and waves of strife,
In her home by the sea,
With her babe on her knee,
Sat Harry Conquest's wife.
And he was on the ocean,
Although she knew not where,
For never a lip

Could tell of the ship,

To lighten her heart's despair.
And her babe was fading and dying;
The pulse in the tiny wrist

Was all but still,

And the brow was chill,

And pale as the white sea mist.

Jane Conquest's heart was hopeless;
She could only weep and pray
That the Shepherd mild

Would take her child
Without a pain away.

The night was dark and darker,
And the storm grew stronger still,
And buried in deep

And dreamless sleep

Lay the hamlet under the hill.

The fire was dead on the hearthstone Within Jane Conquest's room,

And still sat she,

With her babe on her knee, At prayer amid the gloom. When, borne above the tempest, A sound fell on her ear,

Thrilling her through,

For well she knew

'Twas the voice of mortal fear. And a light leaped in at the lattice, Sudden and swift and red;

Crimsoning all,

The whited wall,

And the floor, and the roof o'erhead.

For one brief moment, heedless
Of the babe upon her knee,
With the frenzied start
Of a frightened heart,
Upon her feet rose she.

And through the quaint old casement
She looks upon the sea;

Thank God that the sight
She saw that night

So rare a sight should be!

Hemmed in by many a billow
With mad and foaming lip,
A mile from shore,
Or hardly more,
She saw a gallant ship,
Aflame from deck to topmast,
Aflame from stem to stern;
For there seemed no speck
On all that wreck

Where the fierce fire did not burn:
Till the night was like a sunset,
And the sea like a sea of blood,
And the rocks and shore
Were bathed all o'er

And drenched with the gory flood.

She looked and looked, till the terror
Went creeping through every limb;
And her breath came quick,
And her heart grew sick,

And her sight grew dizzy and dim; And her lips had lost their utterance For she tried but could not speak; And her feelings found

No channel of sound
In prayer, or sob, or shriek.

Once more that cry of anguish

Thrilled through the tempest's strife,

And it stirred again

In heart and brain
The active thinking life;

And the light of an inspiration
Leaped to her brightened eye,

And on lip and brow
Was written now

A purpose pure and high.

Swiftly she turns, and softly
She crosses the chamber floor,

And faltering not,

In his tiny cot

She laid the babe she bore.
And then with a holy impulse,

She sank to her knees, and made
A lowly prayer,

In the silence there,

And this was the prayer she prayed:

"O Christ, who didst bear the scourging,
And who now dost wear the crown,
I at thy feet,

O True and Sweet,
Would lay my burden down.
Thou bad'st me love and cherish
The babe Thou gavest me,
And I have kept

Thy word, nor stept
Aside from following Thee.

"And lo! my boy is dying!
And vain is all my care;

And my burden's weight
Is very great,

Yea, greater than I can bear!
O Lord, Thou know'st what peril
Doth threat these poor men's lives,
And I, a woman,

Most weak and human,

Do plead for their waiting wives.
Thou can'st not let them perish;
Up, Lord, in Thy strength, and save
From the scorching breath

Of this terrible death
On this cruel winter wave.
Take thou my babe and watch it,
No care is like to thine;

And let Thy power,
In this perilous hour,
Supply what lack is mine."

And so her prayer she ended,
And rising to her feet,

Gave one long look

At the cradle nook

Where the child's faint pulses beat; And then with softest footsteps

Retrod the chamber floor,

And noiselessly groped

For the latch and oped
And crossed the cottage door.