and poor;
But when on the morrow I bade them "Adieu,"
They said, quite unmoved, "We'll tarry with you."
And, deaf to entreaty and callous to threat,
These troublesome guests abide with me yet.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings:
I know that God is good!

--John Greenleaf Whittier.

MAKE THY WAY MINE

Father, hold thou my hand;
The way is steep;
I cannot see the path my feet must keep,
I cannot tell, so dark the tangled way,
Where next to step. O stay;
Come close; take both my hands in thine;
Make thy way mine!

Lead me. I may not stay;
I must move on; but oh, the way!
I must be brave and go,
Step forward in the dark, nor know
If I shall reach the goal at all--
If I shall fall.
Take thou my hand.
Take it! Thou knowest best
How I should go, and all the rest
I cannot, cannot see:
Lead me: I hold my hands to thee;
I own no will but thine;
Make thy way mine!

MY PSALM

All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold;
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told!

Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved
His chastening turned me back;

That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;

That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight.

--John Greenleaf Whittier.

What most you wish and long for
Might only bring you pain;
You cannot see the future,
God's purpose to explain.

So trust, faint heart, thy Master!
He doeth all things well,
He loveth more than heart can guess,
And more than tongue can tell.

BETTER TRUST

Better trust all and be deceived,
And weep that trust and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart that, if believed,
Had blest one's life with true believing.

Oh, in this mocking world too fast
The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth;
Better be cheated to the last
Than lose the blessed hope of truth.

--Frances Anne Kemble.

Be patient;