y friend.

Of pride it may not show a trace;
Of lowly mind, alway;
But will not blush to show its face
All through the lifelong day:
Its fragrance other flowers surpass,
In form more stately, too.
But when you see my pets in mass,
Thank God they ever grew.

For though the human face may frown,
Or show a heart of guile,
My pansy pets as you look down
Will look at you and smile;
Nor will they murmur if you should
Pluck off their brightest bloom;
Their mission is to do us good,
And smile away our gloom.

LOVE BETTER THAN KNOWLEDGE

O Thou Eternal One, look down
Upon an erring child of earth;
Thy handiwork with knowledge crown,
Or life will seem of little worth;
By Thine own light illume my way,
And turn this darkness into day.

I hear a whisper in my heart--
"Than knowledge, better far is love;
Thy knowledge here is but in part,
The perfect waits for Thee above:
Walk now by faith, and leave to me
The things now wrap'd in mystery."

Weighed down with mysteries profound
I lean upon Thy loving breast;
The great unknown still girts me round,
But Thou art mine, and here I rest;
Unsolved the mysteries remain;
But they no longer give me pain.

My finite mind may never grasp
The thought of Thy immensity;
But I Thy hand more firmly clasp--
To feel Thee near suffices me;
For Thou art knowledge, power, and love,
The same in earth and heaven above.

A SUFFERING GOD

Man is like God in miniature,
When he is at his best;
His motives and impulses pure,
His heart and will at rest;
No conflict in himself is felt,
His light no earthly beam,
While love encircles like a belt,
And conscience is supreme.

As thus endowed a creature may
The keenest sufferings feel;
Not such as rack the frame of clay,
Which art of man may heal;
But pain untold at others' woes,
And deadly blight of sin,
Which right and virtue overthrows,
And blackens all within.

And may not God have suffered much
Ere reached the gory cross?
Did not our woe the God-heart touch?
Did He not feel our loss?
The "Man of Sorrows" we adore,
And own His sufferings real;
But suffered He as God before;
For God can sorrow feel.

THE COPY

Looking o'er this written page,
Many blurs and blots are seen;
Crooked strokes, at every stage--
Oh, that it again were clean,
As at first I found it, when
I defiled it with my pen!

Gladly would I all erase;
But along th