ess day,
O God of mercy and of might!
In pity look on those who stray
Benighted, in this land of light.

In peopled vale, in lonely glen,
In crowded mart, by stream or sea,
How many of the sons of men
Hear not the message sent from Thee!

Send forth Thy heralds, Lord, to call
The thoughtless young, the hardened old,
A scattered, homeless flock, till all
Be gathered to Thy peaceful fold.

Send them Thy mighty Word to speak,
Till faith shall dawn, and doubt depart,
To awe the bold, to stay the weak,
And bind and heal the broken heart.

Then all these wastes, a dreary scene
That makes us sadden, as we gaze,
Shall grow with living waters green,
And lift to heaven the voice of praise.

William Cullen Bryant, 1840.

AMERICA'S FIRST POET AND HIS HYMNS

William Cullen Bryant, America's first great poet, was also a
hymn-writer. Although he did not devote much of his thought and genius to
sacred lyrics, he wrote at least two splendid hymns that merit a place in
every hymn collection. The one, "Thou, whose unmeasured temple stands,"
is a church dedication hymn of rare beauty; the other, "Look from Thy
sphere of endless day," is unquestionably one of the finest home mission
hymns ever written.

Born at Cummington, Mass., November 3, 1794, he was educated at Williams
College to be a lawyer. It was his writing of "Thanatopsis" as a boy of
seventeen years that gave the first notice to the world that America had
produced a great poet.

It is said that when the lines of "Thanatopsis" were submitted to Richard
H. Dana, editor of the "North American Review," he was skeptical.

"No one on this side of the Atlantic," he declared, "is capable of
writing such verses."

Bryant was brought up in a typical New England Puritan home. Family
worship and strict attendance at public worship was the rule in the
Bryant household. Every little while the children of the community would
also gather in the district schoolhouse, where they would be examined in
the Catechism by the parish minister, a venerable man who was loved by
old and young alike.

While yet a little child Bryant began to pray that he might receive the
gift of writing poetry. No doubt he had been influenced to a large degree
in this desire by the fact that his father was a lover of verse and
possessed a splendid library of t