n the fire.

He wills no waste, no burden is too much
In the most bitter strife;
Beneath the direst buffet is His touch,
Who holds the pruning knife.
We are redeemed through sorrow, and the thorn
That pierces is His kiss,
As through the grave of grief we are re-born
And out of the abyss.
The blood of nations is the precious seed
Wherewith He plants our gates
And from the victory of the virile deed
Spring churches and new states.

And they that fall though but a little space
Fall only in His hand,
And with their lives they pave the fearful place
Whereon the pillars stand.
God treads no more the winepress of His wrath
As once He did alone,
He bids us share with Him the perilous path
The altar and the throne.
When from the iron clash and stormy stress
Which mark His wondrous way,
Shines forth all haloed round with holiness
The rose of perfect day.

ENGLAND.

BY ELIZA COOK.

My heart is pledg'd in wedded faith to England's "Merrie Isle,"
I love each low and straggling cot, each famed ancestral pile;
I'm happy when my steps are free upon the sunny glade,
I'm glad and proud amid the crowd that throng its mart of trade;
I gaze upon our open port, where Commerce mounts her throne,
Where every flag that comes 'ere now has lower'd to our own.
Look round the globe and tell me can ye find more blazon'd names,
Among its cities and its streams, than London and the Thames?

My soul is link'd right tenderly to every shady copse,
I prize the creeping violets, the tall and fragrant hops;
The citron tree or spicy grove for me would never yield,
A perfume half so grateful as the lilies of the field.
Our songsters too, oh! who shall dare to breathe one slighting word,
Their plumage dazzles not--yet say can sweeter strains be heard?
Let other feathers vaunt the dyes of deepest rainbow flush,
Give me old England's nightingale, its robin, and its thrush.

I'd freely rove through Tempe's vale, or scale the giant Alp,
Where roses list the bulbul's late, or snow-wreaths crown the scalp;
I'd pause to hear soft Venice streams plash back to boatman's oar,
Or hearken to the Western flood in wild and falling roar;
I'd tread the vast of mountain range, or spot serene and flower'd,
I ne'er could see too many of the wonders God has shower'd;
Yet though I stood on fairest earth, beneath the bluest heaven,
Could I forget _our_ summer sky, _our_ Windermere and Devon?

I'd own a brother in the good and b