* * * * *

PRECEDED, went before in order of time.  The prefix pre- means before.  Tell what the following words mean: 

prefix, predict, prepare, prejudge, prescribe, predestine, precaution, precursor, prefigure, prearrange.

Read the sentences of the Lesson that express commands.

Memory Gems: 

The conscious water saw its God and blushed.

Richard Crashaw.

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His Name.

Gospel of St. John.

* * * * *

21

dec’ ades (dek’ ads) di’ a dem

MY BEADS.

Sweet blessed beads!  I would not part
With one of you for richest gem
That gleams in kingly diadem: 
Ye know the history of my heart.

For I have told you every grief
In all the days of twenty years,
And I have moistened you with tears,
And in your decades found relief.

Ah! time has fled, and friends have failed,
And joys have died; but in my needs
Ye were my friends, my blessed beads! 
And ye consoled me when I wailed.

For many and many a time, in grief,
My weary fingers wandered round
Thy circled chain, and always found
In some Hail Mary sweet relief.

How many a story you might tell
Of inner life, to all unknown;
I trusted you and you alone,
But ah! ye keep my secrets well.

Ye are the only chain I wear—­
A sign that I am but the slave,
In life, in death, beyond the grave,
Of Jesus and His Mother fair.

Father Ryan.

“Father Ryan’s Poems.”  Published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York.

* * * * *

From the following words make new words by means of the suffix -ous:  joy, grace, grief, glory, desire, virtue, beauty, courage, disaster, harmony.

(Consult the dictionary.)

Memory Gem: 

Mary,—­our comfort and our hope,—­
O, may that name be given
To be the last we sigh on earth,—­
The first we breathe in heaven.

Adelaide A. Procter.

* * * * *

22

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA’S HALLS.

The harp that once through Tara’s halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls,
As if that soul were fled. 
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory’s thrill is o’er,
And hearts, that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone that breaks at night
Its tale of ruin tells. 
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still She lives.