The deeds we do, the words we say,—­
    Into still air they seem to fleet,
      We count them ever past;
      But they shall last,—­
  In the dread judgment they
    And we shall meet.

  I charge thee by the years gone by,
    For the love’s sake of brethren dear,
      Keep thou the one true way,
      In work and play,
  Lest in that world their cry
    Of woe thou hear.

JOHN KEBLE.

* * * * *

SMALL BEGINNINGS.

  A traveller through a dusty road strewed acorns on the lea;
  And one took root and sprouted up, and grew into a tree. 
  Love sought its shade, at evening time, to breath its early vows;
  And age was pleased, in heats of noon, to bask beneath its boughs;
  The dormouse loved its dangling twigs, the birds sweet music bore;
  It stood a glory in its place, a blessing evermore.

  A little spring had lost its way amid the grass and fern,
  A passing stranger scooped a well, where weary men might turn;
  He walled it in, and hung with care a ladle at the brink;
  He thought not of the deed he did, but judged that toil might drink. 
  He passed again, and lo! the well, by summers never dried,
  Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues, and saved a life besides.

  A dreamer dropped a random thought; ’t was old, and yet ’t was new;
  A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being true. 
  It shone upon a genial mind, and lo! its light became
  A lamp of life, a beacon ray, a monitory flame. 
  The thought was small; its issue great; a watch-fire on the hill,
  It shed its radiance far adown, and cheers the valley still!

  A nameless man, amid the crowd that thronged the daily mart,
  Let fall a word of Hope and Love, unstudied, from the heart;
  A whisper on the tumult thrown,—­a transitory breath,—­
  It raised a brother from the dust; it saved a soul from death. 
  O germ!  O fount!  O word of love!  O thought at random cast! 
  Ye were but little at the first, but mighty at the last.

CHARLES MACKAY.

* * * * *

THE RISE OF MAN.

  Thou for whose birth the whole creation yearned
  Through countless ages of the morning world,
  Who, first in fiery vapors dimly hurled,
  Next to the senseless crystal slowly turned,
  Then to the plant which grew to something more,—­
  Humblest of creatures that draw breath of life,—­
  Wherefrom through infinites of patient pain
  Came conscious man to reason and adore: 
  Shall we be shamed because such things have been,
  Or bate one jot of our ancestral pride? 
  Nay, in thyself art thou not deified
  That from such depths thou couldst such summits win? 
  While the long way behind is prophecy
  Of those perfections which are yet to be.