send a boy to college and make him think.
What is wanting, is a proper subjective spirit.
The upper-classmen are old enough to know
what is needed for their physical and temporal
welfare ; they are able to appreciate the need
and benefit of religious instruction. If they
can’t, compulsion will never put them in an
attitude to receive."
ONE DAY.
WALTER I’ERCIVAI. KKNN,
Oh day of days ! Oil perfect summer day !
Your dewy calm, your dream of fair repose
’Mid gentle nature’s soothing pleasantness,
Stirs in my heart a breath of melody,—
An echo from the blue-bird’s charmed flute
And rustle of the wind among the leaves.
I taste again the measure which the past
Has held with smiling grace through happy years;
To me no drop from all her mingled sweets
Has left such fragrant breath of joy divine,
Such memory of a draught celestinl, rare,
As thine sweet day! Oh perfect summer day !
It brings the tender flush of June-tide bach,
And tints with rosy light this cheerless sky,
While angry winter frowns in vain to see
His snowy wrath in rainbow hues dissolve,
And weave fair prophecies of fresh delights
Which sylvan guards of mystic treasuries
But hold, awnit, with soft restraining hand,
Till melting all reserve, the breath of heaven
Thrills into life the silent world of bloom,
Where waits the clover’s welcome for the bee.
Dear heart! When shall we wander hand in hand,
Amid those virgin solitudes, and trace
Again those paths of mosses, velvet soft,
Beneath the tall old forest trees that sway
And nod their hoary heads o’er secret great,
While flickering shadows lightly fall athwart
Their seamed and mottled trunks; and flash
In liquid play, the glancing sunbeams where
The singing waters gaily glide along ?
Dear heart! When shall we list to the sweet wood cries,
That gently break in tuneful melody,
The breathing stillness, restful, somnolent,
With rare antiphonal attuned from call
Of happy building birds, that, vibrant, wing
Their cadenced measures into harmony,—
While bright-eyed squirrels, perched aloft, give back
Response in shrill and eager cries, and drop
THE FREE LANCE.
J. F. L. Morris,
Their bits of bark and twig upon the green,
To clutter from the swnying branch, alert,
For richer gains to swell their hidden stores?
Dear heart! When shall we quench with lauging haste, our
From leafy cup agleam with plashing drops,
Which sparkle down like wealth of jewels spilt?
And watch, in dreamy ease, the swift-winged whirr
Of gorgeous dragon-flies above the sedge,
And note, with rod at rest, the trackless haste
Of darting skaters, vigilant, intent
For watery prey, beneath the ruined bridge,
Where lie the ember shadows dark and cool ?
Oh day of days! Oh perfect summer day !
With golden dower of nodding buttercups
With daisied fields where mild-eyed cattle stand,
Knee-deep in tranquil plenty and content j
With misty silences of hills asleep
Beneath the purpling shadows of the clouds
'flint pile their mimic mountains in the blue,
Return! return and spread once more thy tent
Where waits the still, Complete, the canopy
Of forest trees, in arched and pillared state,
And float thy glowing banner royally 1
Bring back the soft expectant nir that seeks
The treasured perfume offered timidly
By maiden-hair and wild rose, wind—flower pale,
And all the dainty darlings of the wood,
And let us wander, once more, hand in hnnd
Thy pleasant leafy solitudes among,
Oh day of days ! Oh perfect summer day!
IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?
WHEN I present this question to you,
be assured it is not with the motives
of our modern doubters that Ido so. To me
there is nothing more inconsistent and unbe
coming for the finite to set at naught that
glorious gift which the infinite created and
pronounced good—human life. My motives
are in unison with your own, because we
would value this glorious gift from what we
know of it—its attainments, its environments,
its opportunities, its responsibilities, and that
diamond which scratches every other stone—
character.
Yes, life is worth living, for it is neither
insignificant nor baleful. It is a sacred trust,
a glorious gift linked with great responsibili
ties. Life is no common-place matter. I 3