he moment the difference in the hues of truth we
look at through our human prisms, and join in singing (inwardly) this
hymn to the Source of the light we all need to lead us, and the warmth
which alone can make us all brothers.

A SUN-DAY HYMN.

Lord of all being! throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star,
Centre and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!

Sun of our life, thy quickening ray
Sheds on our path the glow of day;
Star of our hope, thy softened light
Cheers the long watches of the night.

Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn;
Our noontide is thy gracious dawn;
Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign;
All, save the clouds of sin, are thine!

Lord of all life, below, above,
Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love,
Before thy ever-blazing throne
We ask no lustre of our own.

Grant us thy truth to make us free,
And kindling hearts that burn for thee,
Till all thy living altars claim
One holy light, one heavenly flame.
One holy light, one heavenly flame.

THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE

by Oliver Wendell Holmes

PREFACE.

In this, the third series of Breakfast-Table conversations, a slight
dramatic background shows off a few talkers and writers, aided by certain
silent supernumeraries. The machinery is much like that of the two
preceding series. Some of the characters must seem like old
acquaintances to those who have read the former papers. As I read these
over for the first time for a number of years, I notice one character;
presenting a class of beings who have greatly multiplied during the
interval which separates the earlier and later Breakfast-Table papers,--I
mean the scientific specialists. The entomologist, who confines himself
rigidly to the study of the coleoptera, is intended to typify this class.
The subdivision of labor, which, as we used to be told, required fourteen
different workmen to make a single pin, has reached all branches of
knowledge. We find new terms in all the Professions, implying that
special provinces have been marked off, each having its own school of
students. In theology we have many curious subdivisions; among the rest
eschatology, that is to say, the geography, geology, etc., of the
"undiscovered country;" in medicine, if the surgeon who deals with
dislocations of the right shoulder declines to medd