And they have seen and worshiped
     The Everlasting Child,
    In whom sweet Truth and Mercy
     Were never unreconciled.

    They have kissed the Beauty of Heaven,
     Incarnate on the earth,
    The Babe in the lap of Mary,
     Of whom He came to his birth.

    Their gifts of love they have rendered
     Unto the new-born King,
    Their gold and myrrh and frankincense,
     The best that they could bring.

    And vanished the Star forever,
     When they turned from the Child away? 
    Shone it not then in their bosoms,
     The light of Eternal Day?

    They could not return to Herod—­
     Too precious for any swine,
    The pearls which they had gathered
     Out of the Sea Divine!

    O Vision of the Redeemer,
     In which faith has struggled to sight! 
    They carried it back to their country,
     And published it day and night.

    They carried it back to their country,
     The vision since Eden’s fall,
    Which seen afar off has sweetened
     The wormwood and the gall.

    And it has become the story
     Of every triumphant soul,
    That in seeking the Eternal
     Reaches a blessed goal.

* * * * *

XXVI.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

THE HEROINE OF THE CRIMEA.

“The care of the poor,” said Hannah More, herself one of the most illustrious women of her time, “is essentially the profession of women.”  In her own person, Florence Nightingale has proved this; and not in one or two cases, but by a whole life passed in devotion to the needs of the poor and humble, the sick and the distressed.  Comparatively little was known of Miss Nightingale before the year 1854, when the needs of the English army in the Crimea called forth the heroism of thousands.  Then it was that Florence Nightingale and other heroic women went out to the East, and personally succored the wounded, comforted the weak-hearted, and smoothed the pillows of the dying.

Miss Nightingale is every way a remarkable woman.  The daughter of an Englishman, W. Shore Nightingale, of Embly Park, Hampshire, she was born in Florence, in the year 1823, and from this fair city she received her patronymic.  From her earliest youth she was accustomed to visit the poor, and, as she advanced in years, she studied in the schools, hospitals, and reformatory institutions of London, Edinburgh, and other principal cities of England, besides making herself familiar with similar places on the Continent.  In 1851, “when all Europe,” says a recent writer, “seemed to be keeping holiday in honor of the Great Exhibition, she took up her abode in an institution at Kaiserwerth, on the Rhine, where Protestant sisters of mercy are trained for the business