Father of goodness,
       Son of love,
       Spirit of comfort,
       Be with us! 
     God who hast made us,
     God who hast saved,
     God who hast judged us,
        Thee we praise. 
     Heaven our spirits,
     Hallow our hearts;
     Let us have God-light
        Endlessly. 
     Ours is the wide world,
     Heaven on heaven;
     What have we done, Lord,
        Worthy this? 
     Oh! we have loved thee;
        That alone
     Maketh our glory,
        Duty, meed. 
     Oh! we have loved thee! 
        Love we will
        Ever, and every
        Soul of us. 
     God of the saved,
     God of the tried,
     God of the lost ones,
        Be with all! 
     Let us be near thee
        Ever and aye;
     Oh! let us love thee
        Infinite!

JOANNA BAILLIE

(1762-1851)

Joanna Baillie’s early childhood was passed at Bothwell, Scotland, where she was born in 1762.  Of this time she drew a picture in her well-known birthday lines to her sister:—­

“Dear Agnes, gleamed with joy, and dashed with tears, O’er us have glided almost sixty years Since we on Bothwell’s bonny braes were seen, By those whose eyes long closed in death have been:  Two tiny imps, who scarcely stooped to gather The slender harebell, or the purple heather; No taller than the foxglove’s spiky stem, That dew of morning studs with silvery gem.  Then every butterfly that crossed our view With joyful shout was greeted as it flew, And moth and lady-bird and beetle bright In sheeny gold were each a wondrous sight.  Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side, Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde, Minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin, Swimming in mazy rings the pool within, A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent Seen in the power of early wonderment.”

[Illustration:  JOANNA BAILLIE]

When Joanna was six her father was appointed to the charge of the kirk at Hamilton.  Her early growth went on, not in books, but in the fearlessness with which she ran upon the top of walls and parapets of bridges and in all daring.  “Look at Miss Jack,” said a farmer, as she dashed by:  “she sits her horse as if it were a bit of herself.”  At eleven she could not read well. “’Twas thou,” she said in lines to her sister—­

     “’Twas thou who woo’dst me first to look
     Upon the page of printed book,
     That thing by me abhorred, and with address
     Didst win me from my thoughtless idleness,
     When all too old become with bootless haste
     In fitful sports the precious time to waste. 
     Thy love of tale and story was the stroke
     At which my dormant fancy first awoke,
     And ghosts and witches in my busy brain
     Arose in sombre show, a motley train.”