closed
my heart too long.'

"'When I hid me from my father, and shut out
my mother's call,
I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father
of us all.

"'Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no
tie of kin apart;
Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.

"'Tell me not the Church must censure: she who
wept the Cross beside
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims
of blood denied;

"'And if she who wronged her parents, with her
child atones to them,
Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least
wilt not condemn!'

"So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother
spake;
As we come to do her bidding, So receive us for her
sake."

"God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh,
and He gives;
He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our
daughter lives!"

"Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a
tear away,
And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence,
"Let us pray."

All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase,
Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer
of love and praise.

But he started at beholding, as he rose from off
his knee,
The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of
Papistrie.

"What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English
Christian's home
A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign
of Rome?"

Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his
trembling hand, and cried:
Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my
mother died!

"On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and
sunshine fall,
As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the
dear God watches all!"

The old man stroked the fair head that rested on
his knee;
"Your words, dear child," he answered, "are God's
rebuke to me.

"Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our
faith and hope be one.
Let me be your father's father, let him be to me
a son."

When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the
still and frosty air,
From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to
sermon and to prayer,

To the goodly house of worship, where, in order
due and fit,
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the
people sit;

Mistress first and g