Yet ask they now, those kindly friends,
If life have shown but sunnier side;
No tear-drop mingled with its bliss,
No earthly pleasure been denied?

Ah! well for us that human love
Hath lacked the means to work its will;
That God's desires took wider range,
Nor could such blindfold dreams fulfil.

While we, child-like, scarce asked for more
Than play-hours spent 'mid nursery toys,
God gently placed us in His school
To wean our hearts from childish joys,

And thus to train the spirit-growth
Beneath His wise, corrective hand,
Until at length we had attained
The nobler man His forethought planned.

Yet strange how oft our human will
Rebels against the will Divine,
And in its wish for present ease
Forgets how blest His high design.

Not seldom thus He giveth back
The lessons we would fain ignore;
We scramble through as best we may,
And are scarce wiser than before.

But now a pause has come in life.
We stand awhile with thoughtful eye
To watch the Old Year's sunset glow,
To see it slowly pale and die,

Until a growing Eastern light
Shall usher in with Time's new year
A further tale of shine and shade,
In forecast hid from wisest seer.

A solemn hush steals o'er the heart:
Not ours in thoughtless mirth to greet
This sudden bend on life's high road-
This strange, new path before our feet.

We know our past, at least thus far,
Its outward changing form we know ;
For few, meanwhile, have power to guess
Life's actual hid behind its show.

But now we ask in wondering awe
What next the future may disclose.
Shall joyous landscapes meet our view,
Lit up with skies of gleaming rose?

Or must we walk with slow, sad feet,
Onward through bleak and stony land,
Where thorn-bush takes the place of flower,
And mists strike chill on every hand.

No answer comes from out the dark.
Enough for trustful hearts to know
Their Father's wisely tender thought
Shall plan the way His children go.

John xiv. 23. 2 Cor. vi. 16-18; vii. 1.

Not less was meant by Jesu's prayer,
"That they be perfected in one,"
Not less when God chose each to be
Conformed in image to His Son.2

But life is brief! we trembling cry,
Such wondrous change, how can it be?
We need not doubt: Time's eldest are
But infants in eternity.

God's teaching cannot all be crammed
Within a term of fourscore years;
Its alphabet we scarcely learn
Amid our changing smiles and tears.

But so we take to earnest heart
The lessons planned each passing hour,
Germs of all holy life are ours,

As seeds contain both root and flower.

Our part is this: to nourish well
The life of love and thought within,
To value motive more than deed,
And most to dread the secret sin.

Nor slurring over common tasks
To think no work of mean degree;
The kingliest king once lived below
As carpenter in Galilee.

Then rising higher, each heart must learn
To make its brother's need its own;

The soul that only thinks of self
Lives farthest from the central throne.

Yet more than this: if on our face
Some ray of holy light would shine,
Oft must we climb the mount of God
To breathe the air of things divine.3

And seek high fellowship with Him,
The mighty, glorious Three in One,
Until we faintly catch His glow
As dewdrops may reflect the sun.1

John xvii. 23. Eph. ii. 21, 22. a Ex. xxxiv. 29, 30.

2 Rom. viii. 29.

4 2 Cor. iii. 18, Rev. Ver.