They answered me sternly, “Thy knowledge is mortal;
      Thou hear’st not as we must, the plaints without tongue: 
    The wrongs that come beating the crystalline portal,
      Inflicted by mortals on those who are dumb.

    “Ye bleed for the nation, ye give to the altar,
      Ye heal the great sorrows that clamor and cry,
    Yet care not how oft ’neath the spur and the halter,
      The brutes of the universe falter and die.

    “Yet Jesus forgets not that while ye ensnared Him,
      And drove Him with curses of burden and goad,
    These gentle ones watched where the Magi declared Him,
      And often have spared Him the long desert road.

    “They crumble to dust; but we, watchers remaining,
      Attest their endurance through centuries past,
    Oh, fear! lest in future to Judgment attaining,
      These woes, uncomplaining, confront you at last!”

JULIA C. VERPLANCK.

* * * * *

SPEAK GENTLY.

    Speak gently! it is better far
      To rule by love than fear: 
    Speak gently! let not harsh words mar
      The good we might do here.

Speak gently! ’tis a little thing,
Dropped in the heart’s deep well,
The good, the joy, which it may bring,
Eternity shall tell.

* * * * *

                            O, it is excellent
    To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
    To use it like a giant.

Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 2.

* * * * *

QUESTIONS.

Is there not something in the pleading eye
Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns
The law that bids it suffer?  Has it not
A claim for some remembrance in the book,
That fills its pages with the idle words
Spoken of man?  Or is it only clay,
Bleeding and aching in the potter’s hand,
Yet all his own to treat it as he will,
And when he will to cast it at his feet,
Shattered, dishonored, lost for evermore? 
My dog loves me, but could he look beyond
His earthly master, would his love extend
To Him who—­Hush!  I will not doubt that He
Is better than our fears, and will not wrong
The least, the meanest of created things.

O. W. HOLMES.

* * * * *

HEROES.

    The heroes are not all six feet tall,
    Large souls, may dwell in bodies small,
    The heart that will melt with sympathy
    For the poor and the weak, whoe’er it be,
    Is a thing of beauty, whether it shine
    In a man of forty or lad of nine.

Scattered Seed.

* * * * *

FOR THE SAKE OF THE INNOCENT ANIMALS.