The lizard rested on the rock while I sat among the ruins, And the pride of man was like a vision of the night. Lo, the lords of the city have disappeared into darkness, The ancient wilderness hath swallowed up all their work. There is nothing left of the city but a heap of fragments; […]

The Lord is my teacher, I shall not lose the way. He leadeth me in the lowly path of learning, He prepareth a lesson for me every day; He bringeth me to the clear fountains of instruction, Little by little he showeth me the beauty of truth. The world is a great book that he […]

THE CAMP-FIRES OF MY FRIEND Thou hast taken me into thy tent of the world, O God, Beneath thy blue canopy I have found shelter, Therefore thou wilt not deny me the right of a guest. Naked and poor I arrived at thy door before sunset: Thou hast refreshed me with beautiful bowls of milk, […]

Break off! Dance no more! Danger is at the door. Music is in arms. To signal war’s alarms, Hark, a sudden trumpet calling Over the hill Why are you calling, trumpet, calling? What is your will? Men, men, men! Men who are ready to fight For their country’s life, and the right. Of a liberty-loving […]

I PRELUDE 1 Daughter of Psyche, pledge of that wild night When, pierced with pain and bitter-sweet delight, She knew her Love and saw her Lord depart, Then breathed her wonder and her woe forlorn Into a single cry, and thou wast born! Thou flower of rapture and thou fruit of grief; Invisible enchantress of […]

Wordsworth, thy music like a river rolls Among the mountains, and thy song is fed By living springs far up the watershed; No whirling flood nor parching drought controls The crystal current: even on the shoals It murmurs clear and sweet; and when its bed Deepens below mysterious cliffs of dread, Thy voice of peace […]

THE railway station of Bathurst, New Brunswick, did not look particularly merry at two o’clock of a late September morning. There was an easterly haze driving in from the Baie des Chaleurs and the darkness was so saturated with chilly moisture that an honest downpour of rain would have been a relief. Two or three […]

Lord God of the solitary, Look upon me in my loneliness. Since I may not keep this Christmas in the home, Send it into my heart. Let not my sins cloud me in, But shine through them with forgiveness in the face of the child Jesus. Put me in loving remembrance of the lowly lodging […]

Father of all men, look upon our family, Kneeling together before Thee, And grant us a true Christmas. With loving heart we bless Thee: For the gift of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, For the peace He brings to human homes, For the good-will He teaches to sinful men, For the glory of Thy goodness […]

ROMANS, xiv, 6: He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common […]

I The custom of exchanging presents on a certain day in the year is very much older than Christmas, and means very much less. It has obtained in almost all ages of the world, and among many different nations. It is a fine thing or a foolish thing, as the case may be; an encouragement […]

It was the hour of rest in the Country Beyond the Stars. All the silver bells that swing with the turning of the great ring of light which lies around that land were softly chiming; and the sound of their commotion went down like dew upon the golden ways of the city, and the long […]

It was really a good little summer resort where the boy and I were pegging away at our vacation. There were the mountains conveniently arranged, with pleasant trails running up all of them, carefully marked with rustic but legible guide-posts; and there was the sea comfortably besprinkled with islands, among which one might sail around […]

“A day off” said my Uncle Peter, settling down in his chair before the open wood-fire, with that air of complacent obstinacy which spreads over him when he is about to confess and expound his philosophy of life,–“a day off is a day that a man takes to himself.” “You mean a day of luxurious […]

“It is one thing,” said my Uncle Peter, “to be perfectly honest. But it is quite another thing to tell the truth.” “Are you honest in that remark,” I asked, “or are you merely telling the truth?” “Both,” he answered, with twinkling eyes, “for that is an abstract remark, in which species of discourse truth-telling […]

Among the annals of the Petrine Club, which has for its motto the wise words of St. Peter, “I go a-fishing,” there are several profitable tales. Next to the story of Beekman De Peyster’s fatal success in transforming a fairly good wife into a ferocious angler, probably the most instructive is the singular adventure that […]

No other time of the year, on our northern Atlantic seaboard, is so alluring, so delicate and subtle in its charm, as that which follows the fading of the bright blue lupins in the meadows and along the banks of the open streams, and precedes the rosy flush of myriad laurels in full bloom on […]

My little Dorothea was the only one of the merry crowd who cared to turn aside with me from the beaten tourist-track, and give up the sight of another English cathedral for the sake of a quiet day among the Quantock Hills. Was it the literary association of that little corner of Somersetshire with the […]

“You must write a novel,” said my Uncle Peter to the young Man of Letters. “The novel is the literary form in which the psychological conditions of interest are most easily discovered and met. It appeals directly to the reader’s self-consciousness, and invites him to fancy how fine a figure he would cut in more […]

My Uncle Peter was much interested in the war which broke out, not long ago, among the professional nature-writers. He said that it was a civil war, and therefore a philosopher was bound to be regardful of it, because a civil war always involved subtle problems of psychology. He also said that it was a […]