I DARE NOT SCORN.

Thy form benign, oh, goddess! wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there,

To soften, not to wound, my heart.
The generous spark extinct revive;
Teach me to love and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are, to feel, and know myself a man.*

309

*

"WE are to observe and respect the smallest good that is in any. Although a Christian be never so base in his outward condition in body or mind, of very mean intellectual and natural endowments, yet they that know the worth of spiritual things will esteem the grace of God that is in him, in the midst of all those disadvantages, as men esteem a pearl, though in a rough shell. * The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece of paper in their way, but took it up; for possibly, say they, the name of God may be on it. Though there was a little superstition, yet truly there is nothing but good religion in it, if we apply it to men. Trample not on any; there may be some work of grace there that thou knowest not of. The name of God may be written upon that soul thou treadest on."-Leighton.

"Our enemies are sin and Satan; for men, however sinful, are not to be so regarded by us, till Christ the Saviour shall come as Christ the Judge. Till that great day the most wicked man alive is our brother; and for him as well as for us Christ has died."-Arnold.

I MAY not scorn the meanest thing

That on the earth doth crawl,

The slave who dares not burst his chain,
The tyrant in his hall.

The vile oppressor who hath made

The widowed mother mourn,

Though worthless, soulless, he may stand

I cannot, dare not scorn.

The darkest night that shrouds the sky

Of beauty hath a share;

The blackest heart hath signs to tell

That God still lingers there.

I pity all that evil are

I pity and I mourn;

But the Supreme hath fashioned all,
And, oh! I dare not scorn.

NICOLL.

XLVII. ALL'S FOR THE BEST!

"GOD is the master of the scenes; we must not choose which part we shall act; it concerns us only to be careful that we do it well, always saying, 'If this please God, let it be as it is' and we, who pray that God's will may be done in earth as it is done in heaven, must remember that the angels do whatsoever is commanded them, and go wherever they are sent, and refuse no circumstances; and if their employment be crossed by a higher degree, they sit down in peace, and rejoice in the event; and when the angel of Judea could not prevail in behalf of the people committed to his charge, because the angel of Persia opposed it, he only told the story at the command of God, and was as content, and worshipped with as great an ecstacy in his proportion, as the prevailing spirit. Do thou so likewise; keep the station where God hath placed you, and you shall never long for things without, but sit at home, feasting upon the Divine Providence and thy own reason, by which we are taught that it is necessary and reasonable to submit to God."-Jeremy Taylor.

ALL'S for the best! be sanguine and cheerful,
Trouble and sorrow are friends in disguise,
Nothing but Folly goes faithless and fearful,
Courage for ever is happy and wise:
All for the best,-if a man would but know it,
Providence wishes us all to be blest,

This is no dream of the pundit or poet,

Heaven is gracious, and-All's for the best!

All for the best! set this on your standard,
Soldier of sadness, or pilgrim of love,

Who to the shores of Despair may have wandered,
A way-wearied swallow, or heart-stricken dove:
All for the best! be a man but confiding,
Providence tenderly governs the rest,
And the frail bark of His creature is guiding
Wisely and warily all for the best.

All for the best! then fling away terrors,
Meet all your fears and your foes in the van,
And in the midst of your dangers or errors

Trust like a child, while you strive like a man:

IMAGINARY EVILS.

All's for the best!-unbiassed, unbounded,
Providence reigns from the East to the West;
And, by both wisdom and mercy surrounded,
Hope, and be happy, that All's for the best!

311

TUPPER'S Ballads and Poems.

XLVIII. IMAGINARY EVILS.

"ENJOY the present, whatsoever it be, and be not solicitous for the future; for if you take your foot from the present standing, and thrust it forward towards to-morrow's event, you are in a restless condition : it is like refusing to quench your present thirst by fearing you shall want drink the next day. If it be well to-day, it is madness to make the present miserable by fearing it may be ill to-morrow-when your belly is full of to-day's dinner, to fear you shall want the next day's supper; for it may be you shall not, and then to what purpose was this day's affliction? But if to-morrow you shall want, your sorrow will come time enough, though you do not hasten it: let your trouble tarry till its own day comes. But if it chance to be ill to-day, do not increase it by the care of to-morrow. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God send them, and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly; for this day is only ours: we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. He, therefore, that enjoys the present if it be good, enjoys as much as is possible; and if only that day's trouble leans upon him, it is singular and finite. Sufficient to the day (said Christ) is the evil thereof:' sufficient but not intolerable. But if we look abroad, and bring into one day's thoughts the evil of many, certain and uncertain, what will be and what will never be, our load will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable."-Jeremy Taylor.

LET to morrow take care of to-morrow,
Leave things of the future to fate :
What's the use to anticipate sorrow?
Life's troubles come never too late
If to hope overmuch be an error,

"Tis one that the wise have preferred;
And how often have hearts been in terror
Of evils-that never occurred!

Have faith-and thy faith shall sustain thee-
Permit not suspicion and care

With invisible bonds to enchain thee,
But bear what God gives thee to bear,
By His spirit supported and gladdened,
Be ne'er by "forebodings" deterred!

But think how oft hearts have been saddened
By fear of what never occurred!

Let to-morrow take care of to-morrow;
Short and dark as our life may appear,
We may make it still darker by sorrow-
Still shorter by folly and fear!
Half our troubles are half our invention,
And often from blessings conferred
Have we shrunk in the wild apprehension
Of evils-that never occurred!

C. SWAIN.

XLIX. ADDRESS TO LIGHT.

"IN holy reverence, celebrate His praises, who hath adapted the eye to the nature of light; who formed light in particles so small and soft, that they might affect the eye without destroying it; who gave them such a velocity, that we are by them immediately informed of many things at the place where they come; who gave them the difference by which they cause all that pleasing variety of colour which delights the eye, having formed bodies so as to be variously affected by them. Let his name be praised, who conveys so many blessings in the beams of light. He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all."-Sturm.

HAIL, holy light, offspring' of heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.3
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle," didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained

THE ORPHAN BOY.

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night ;7

9

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. *** *Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns 10
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;"
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance 12 quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there 13 plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see, and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

1. What passages of Scripture are alluded to in the introductory lines of this piece?

2. Point out the exact meaning of this of, and state which it connects? 3. Paraphrase this line.

4. Explain the meaning of the phrase hear'st thou rather.

5. What is the clause, as with a mantle, meant to qualify?

6. What is the Stygian pool, and why called so?

313

MILTON.

L. THE ORPHAN BOY.

"THE idea of honour is associated with war. But to whom does the honour belong? If to any, certainly not to the mass of the people, but to those who are particularly engaged in it. The mass of a people, who stay at home, and hire others to fight-who sleep in their