With that he cried and beat his breast
For lo! along the river's bed
A mighty eagre reared his crest,
And up the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud;
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis backward pressed,
Shook all her trembling bankes amaine;
Then madly at the eagre's breast

Flung uppe her weltering walls again.
Then bankes came down with ruin and rout-
Then beaten foam flew round about-
Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eagre drave,
The heart had hardly time to beat,
Before a shallow seething wave

Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet:
The feet had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.

Upon the roofe we sat that night,

The noise of bells went sweeping by:

I marked the lofty beacon light

Stream from the church tower, red and high

A lurid mark and dread to see;

And awesome bells they were to mee,

That in the dark rang "Enderby."

They rang the sailor lads to guide

From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed;

And I-my sonne was at my side,

And yet the ruddy beacon glowed;

And yet he moaned beneath his breath, "O come in life, or come in death!

O lost! my love, Elizabeth."

And didst thou visit him no more?

Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;

The waters laid thee at his doore,

Ere yet the early dawn was clear. Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, The lifted sun shone on thy face, Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass,
That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!

To manye more than myne and me:
But each will mourn his own (she saith).
And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.

I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
"Cusha, Cusha, Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
"Cusha, Cusha!" all along,
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth;

From the meads where melick groweth,

When the water, winding down,
Onward floweth to the town.

I shall never see her more

Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
Shiver, quiver;

Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling
To the sandy lonesome shore;

I shall never hear her calling,
"Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot;

Quit your pipes of parsley hollow;

Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow;

Lightfoot, Whitefoot,

From the clovers lift your head;

Come uppe Jetty, follow, follow,

Jetty, to the milking shed."

JEAN INGELOW.

THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD.

["The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.”]

you can,

Go out beneath the arched heavens at night, and say, if "There is no God!" Pronounce that dreadful blasphemy, and each star above you will reproach the unbroken darkness of your intellect; every voice that

floats upon the night winds will bewail your utter hopelessness and folly.

Is there no God? Who, then, unrolled the blue scroll, and threw upon its high frontispiece the legible gleamings of immortality? Who fashioned this green earth, with its perpetual rolling waters, and its wide expanse of islands and of main? Who settled the foundations of the mountains? Who paved the heavens with clouds, and attuned, amid the clamor of storms, the voice of thunders, and unchained the lightnings that flash in their gloom?

Who gave to the eagle a safe eyrie where the tempests dwell, and beat the strongest, and to the dove a tranquil abode amid the forests that echo to the minstrelsy of her moan? Who made THEE, O man! with thy perfected elegance of intellect and form? Who made the light pleasant to thee, and the darkness a covering, and a herald to the first gorgeous flashes of the morning?

There is a God. All nature declares it in a language too plain to be misapprehended. The great truth is too legibly written over the face of the whole creation to be easily mistaken. Thou canst behold it in the tender blade just starting from the earth in the early spring, or in the sturdy oak that has withstood the blasts of fourscore winters. The purling rivulet, meandering through downy meads and verdant glens, and Niagara's tremendous torrent, leaping over its awful chasm, and rolling in majesty its broad sheet of waters onward to the ocean, unite in proclaiming "THERE IS A GOD."

'Tis heard in the whispering breeze and in the howling storm; in the deep-toned thunder, and in the earthquake's shock; 'tis declared to us when the tempest lowers-when the hurricane sweeps over the land-when the winds moan around our dwellings, and die in sullen murmurs on the plain-when the heavens, overcast with blackness, ever and anon are illuminated by the lightning's glare.

Nor is the truth less solemnly impressed on our minds in the universal hush and calm repose of nature, when all is still as the soft breathings of an infant's slumber. The vast ocean, when its broad expanse is whitened with foam, and when its heaving waves roll mountain on mountain high, or when the dark blue of heaven's vault is reflected with beauty on its smooth and tranquil bosom, confirms

the declaration. The twinkling star, shedding its flickering rays so far above the reach of human ken, and the glorious sun in the heavens-all-all declare, there is a universal FIRST CAUSE.

And Man, the proud lord of creation, so fearfully and wonderfully made—each joint in its corresponding socket— each muscle, tendon, and artery, performing their allotted functions with all the precision of the most perfect mechanism and, surpassing all, possessed of a soul capable of enjoying the most exquisite pleasure, or of enduring the most excruciating pain, which is endowed with immortal capacities, and is destined to live onward through the endless ages of eternity-these all unite in one general proclamation of the eternal truth-there is a Being, infinite in wisdom, who reigns over all, undivided and supreme-the Fountain of all life, Source of all light-from whom all blessings flow, and in whom all happiness centres.

NO GOD.

[Study variety and individual word expression.]

Is there no God? The white rose made reply,
My ermine robe was woven in the sky.

The blue-bird warbled from his shady bower,
My plumage fell from hands that made the flower.

Is there no God? The silvery ocean spray
At the vile question startles in dismay;
And, tossing mad against earth's impious clod,
Impatient thunders-yes, there is a God!

Is there no God? The greedy worm that raves
In sportive glee amid the gloom of graves,
Proves a Divinity supremely good,

For daily morsels sent of flesh and blood.

Is there no God? The dying Christian's hand,
Pale with disease, points to a better land;
And, ere his body mingles with the sod,
He, sweetly smiling, softly murmurs-God.

No God!

Who broke the shackles from the slave?
Who gave this bleeding nation power to save
Its Flag and Union in the hour of gloom,
And lay rebellion's spirit in the tomb?

We publish God!-The towering mountains cry.
Jehovah's name is blazoned on the sky,
The dancing streamlet and the golden grain,
The lightning gleam, the thunder, and the rain,

The dew-drop diamond on the lily's breast,
The tender leaf by every breeze caressed,
The shell, whose pearly bosom ocean laves,
And sea-weed bowing to a troop of waves;

The glow of Venus and the glare of Mars,
The tranquil beauty of the lesser stars;
The eagle, soaring in majestic flight,

The morning bursting from the clouds of night,

The child's fond prattle and the mother's prayer,
Angelic voices floating on the air,

Mind, heart, and soul, the ever-restless breath,
And all the myriad-mysteries of death.

Beware ye doubting, disbelieving throng,
Whose sole ambition is to favor wrong;

There is a God; remember while ye can,

"His Spirit will not always strive with man."

N. K. RICHARDSON

THE MODERN CAIN.

[Opportunity is here afforded for great variety in expression, from pathetic to vehement, many passages requiring great intensity of feeling and utterance.]

"Am I my brother's keeper ?"

Long ago,

When first the human heart-strings felt the touch
Of Death's cold fingers-when upon the earth
Shroudless and coffinless Death's first-born lay,
Slain by the hand of violence, the wail