8. THE CALL OF THE FLOWERS.

LO! the lilies of the field,

How their leaves instruction yield!

Hark to Nature's lesson given
By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree.
Warbles sweet philosophy:

"Children, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!"

Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we poor citizens of air?

Barns nor hoarded grain have we;
Yet we carol merrily.

"Children, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow."

One there lives whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;

One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps his creatures, lest they fall.
Pass we blithely, then, the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,

Free from doubt and faithless sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow.

Bishop Heber.

9. THE CALL OF THE BIRDS.

LIST to the birds that sing!

Pluck the primroses; pluck the violets;
Pluck the daisies;

Sing their praises :

Friendship with the flowers noble thoughts
begets.

Come forth and gather these sweet elves;
Come and gather them yourselves;

Learn of the gentle flowers whose worth is more than gold.

Pierce into the bowers

Of the gentle flowers,

Which not in solitude

Dwell, but with each other keep society,
And, with a simple piety

Are ready to be woven into garlands for the good,
Or upon summer earth

To die in virgin worth,
Or to be strewn before the bride,
And the bridegroom by her side.

Come forth on Sundays,

Come forth on Mondays,

Come forth on any day!

Worship the God of Nature in your childhood; Worship him at your tasks with best endeavor;

Worship him in your sports; worship him ever.

Worship him in the wild wood;
Worship him amidst the flowers;
Pluck the buttercups, and raise
Your voices in his praise.

Edward Youl (altered).

10. THE JOY OF WORSHIP.

H! SWEETER than the marriage feast,

"Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the church
With a goodly company!

To walk together to the church,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

S. T. Coleridge.

R

11. WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID.

ABBI JEHOSHA used to say

That God made angels every day

Perfect as Michael and the rest First brooded in Creation's nest; * Whose only office was to cry "Hosanna!" once, and then to die. If with life's sources to be blent, Be not return from banishment.

Rabbi Jehosha had the skill

To know that heaven is in God's will;
And doing that, though for a space,
One heart-beat long, may win a grace
As full of grandeur and of glow
As princes of the chariot know.

'Twere glorious, no doubt, to be
One of the winged hierarchy;
To burn with seraphs, or to shine
With cherubs deathlessly divine :
Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod,
Could I forget myself in God;
Could I but find
my nature's clew
Simply, as birds and blossoms do;
And but for one rapt moment know
'Tis heaven that comes, not we that go,

Should win my place as near the throne
As the pearl, angel of its zone,
And God would listen 'mid the throng
For my one breath of perfect song.

J. R. Lowell

M

12. THE BOY AND THE ANGEL.

ORNING, evening, noon, and night,
"Praise God!" sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned,
By which the daily bread was earned.
Hard he labored, long and well;
O'er the work his boy's curls fell:
But ever at each period

He stopped, and sang, "Praise God!"

Then back again his curls he threw,
And, cheerful, turned to work anew.
Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done!
I doubt not thou art heard, my son,
As well as if thy voice to-day

Were praising God the Pope's great way.

This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome

Praises God from Peter's dome."

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I
Might praise him that great way, and die!"

Night passed, day shone,

And Theocrite was gone.