To hear Thy still, small voice!
I have not felt myself a thing,
Far from Thy presence driven,
By flaming sword or waving wing
Shut off from Thee and heaven.
Must I the whirlwind reap because
My fathers sowed the storm?
Or shrink, because another sinned,
Beneath Thy red, right arm?
Oh much of this we dimly scan,
And much is all unknown;
But I will not take my curse from man--
I turn to Thee alone!
Oh bid my fainting spirit live,
And what is dark reveal,
And what is evil, oh forgive,
And what is broken heal.
And cleanse my nature from above,
In the dark Jordan of Thy love!
I know not if the Christian's heaven
Shall be the same as mine;
I only ask to be forgiven,
And taken home to Thine.
I weary on a far, dim strand,
Whose mansions are as tombs,
And long to find the Fatherland,
Where there are many homes.
Oh grant of all yon starry thrones,
Some dim and distant star,
Where Judah's lost and scattered sons
May love Thee from afar.
Where all earth's myriad harps shall meet
In choral praise and prayer,
Shall Zion's harp, of old so sweet,
Alone be wanting there?
Yet place me in Thy lowest seat,
Though I, as now, be there,
The Christian's scorn, the Christian's jest;
But let me see and hear,
From some dim mansion in the sky,
Thy bright ones and their melody."
The sun goes down with sudden gleam,
And--beautiful as a lovely dream
And silently as air--
The vision of a dark-eyed girl,
With long and raven hair,
Glides in--as guardian spirits glide--
And lo! is kneeling by his side,
As if her sudden presence there
Were sent in answer to his prayer.
(Oh say they not that angels tread
Around the good man's dying bed?)
His child--his sweet and sinless child--
And as he gazed on her
He knew his God was reconciled,
And this the messenger,
As sure as God had hung on high
The promise bow before his eye--
Earth's purest hopes thus o'er him flung,
To point his heavenward faith,
And life's most holy feeling strung
To sing him into death;
And on his daughter's stainless breast
The dying Hebrew found his rest!

GIVE ME BACK MY HUSBAND.

Not many years since, a young married couple from the far
"fast-anchored isle" sought our shores with the most sanguine
anticipations of happiness and prosperity. They had begun to reali