CHILD'S BOOK OF RELIGION.

PART I.

WORSHIP.

I.

CALLS TO PRAYER.

B

1. THE CHILD'S PRAYER.

Y Alpine lake, 'neath shady rock,

The herdboy knelt beside his flock, ⚫

And softly told, with pious air,

His alphabet as evening prayer.

Unseen, his pastor lingered near. "My child, what means the sound I hear? May I not in the worship share,

And raise to heaven my evening prayer?

"Where'er the hills and valleys blend,
The sounds of prayer and praise ascend.
My child, a prayer yours cannot be:
You've only said your A B C."

1

"I have no better way to pray:
All that I know, to God I say;
I tell the letters on my knees:
He makes the words himself to please."
Miss Lander (from the German).

IT

2. THE BEAUTY OF PRAYER.

T is good to pray unto God: for his sorrowing children

Turns he ne'er from the door; but he heals and helps and consoles them.

It is good to pray when all things are prospering with us,

Pray in fortunate days; for Life's most beautiful Fortune

Kneels down before the Eternal's throne, and, with hands interfolded,

Praises, thankful and moved, the only Giver of blessings.

For do ye know, ye children, one blessing that comes not from heaven?

What has mankind forsooth, the poor, that it has not received?

Therefore fall on thy knee, and pray. The seraphs, adoring,

Cover with pinions six their face in the glory of Him who

Hung his masonry pendent on nought when the world he created.

Earth declareth his might, and the firmament speaketh his glory.

Races blossom and die, and stars fall downward

from heaven,

Downward like withered leaves. At the last

stroke of midnight, millenniums

Lay themselves down at his feet; and he sees them, and counts them as nothing.

Yet why do ye fear, ye children? This awful Avenger,

Ah! is a merciful God. God's voice was not heard in the earthquake,

Not in the fire, nor the storm; but it was in the whispering breezes.

Love is the root of creation,-God's essence. Worlds without number

Lie in his bosom like children. He made them for this purpose only,

Only to love, and to be loved again. He breathed forth his Spirit

Into the slumbering dust; and, upright standing, it placed

Its hand on its heart, and felt it was warm with a flame out of heaven.

Quench, oh, quench not that flame! It is the breath of your being!

From the Swedish of Tegner,

Translated by Longfellow.

3. PRAYER IS OF NO PLACE.

H! wherefore this dream of the earthly abode
Of humanity clothed in the brightness of

God?

Were our spirits but turned from the outward and dim,

They could gaze even now on the presence of Him:

Not in clouds, nor in terrors, but gentle as when In love and in meekness he moved among men; And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea

In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me. Then what if our feet may not tread where he stood,

Nor our ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood, Nor our eyes see the cross which he bowed him to bear,

Nor our knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer?

Yet, loved of the Father, thy spirit is near

To the meek and the lowly and penitent here; And the voice of thy love is the same, even now, As at Bethlehem's tomb or on Olivet's brow.

J. G. Whittier.