ies, needy one:
no man ever starved, who even faintly tried to do them. Look to thy God,
O sinner! use reason wisely; cherish honour; shrink not from toil,
though somewhile unrewarded; preserve frank bearing with thy fellows;
and in spite of all thy sins--forgiven; all thy follies--flung away; all
the trickeries of this world--scorned; all competitions--disregarded;
all suspicions--trodden under foot; thou neediest and raggedest of
labourers' labourers--Enough shall be thy portion, ere a week hath
passed away.

Well did Agur-the-Wise counsel Ithiel and Ucal his disciples, when he
uttered in their ears before his God, this prayerful admonition, "Two
things have I required of Thee; deny me them not before I die: remove
far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me
with food convenient for me. Lest I be full, and deny Thee, saying, Who
is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and dishonour the name of the
Lord my God."

CHAPTER XXXII.

NEXT MORNING.

Day dawned apace; and a glorious cavalcade of flaming clouds
heralded the Sun their captain. From far away, round half the wide
horizon, their glittering spears advanced. Heaven's highway rang with
the trampling of their horse-hoofs, and the dust went up from its
jewelled pavement as spray from the bottom of a cataract. Anon, he
came, the chieftain of that on-spurring host! his banner blazed upon the
sky; his golden crest was seen beneath, nodding with its ruddy plumes;
over the south-eastern hills he arose in radiant armour. Fair Nature,
waking at her bridegroom's voice, arrived so early from a distant clime,
smiled upon him sleepily, gladdening him in beauty with her sweet
half-opened eyelids, and kissing him in faithfulness with
dew-besprinkled lips.

And he looked forth upon the world from his high chariot, holding back
the coursers that must mount the steep of noon: and he heard the morning
hymn of thankfulness to Heaven from the mountains, and the valleys, and
the islands of the sea; the prayer of man and woman, the praise of
lisping tongues, the hum of insect joy upon the air, the sheep-bell
tinkling in the distance, the wild bird's carol, and the lowing kine,
the mute minstrelsy of rising dews, and that stilly scarce-heard
universal melody of wakeful plants and trees, hastening to turn their
spring-buds to the light--this was the anthem he, the Lord of Day, now
listened to--this was the song his influences had raised to bless