A GOOD WOMAN.

NOT as all other women are
Is she that to our souls is dear;
Her glorious fancies come from far,
Beneath the silver evening-star,
And yet her heart is ever near.

Rapt in herself she dwelleth not
Although no home were half so fair;
No simplest duty is forgot,

Life hath no dim and lowly spot
That doth not in her sunshine share.

She doeth little kindnesses,

Which most leave undone, or despise;
For nought that sets one heart at ease,
And giveth happiness or peace,
Is low-esteemèd in her eyes.

She hath no scorn of common things,
And, though she seem of other birth,
Round us her heart entwines and clings,
And patiently she folds her wings
To tread the humble paths of earth.
Blessing she is: God made her so,
And deeds of weekday holiness
Fall from her noiseless as the snow,
Nor hath she ever chanced to know
That aught were easier than to bless.

She is most fair, and thereunto
Her life doth rightly harmonize;
Feeling or thought that was not true
Ne'er made less beautiful the blue
Unclouded heaven of her eyes.

She is a woman: one in whom
The spring-time of her childish years
Hath never lost its fresh perfume,

Though knowing well that life hath room
For many blights and many tears.

1 rapt in-lost in contemplation of.

We love her with a love as still
As a broad river's peaceful might,
Which, by high tower and lowly mill,
Goes wandering at its own will,
And yet doth ever flow aright.

And, on its full, deep breast serene,
Like quiet isles our duties lie;

It flows around them and between,
And makes them fresh and fair and green,
Sweet homes wherein to live and die.

James Russell Lowell: born, 1819.

(See page 22.)

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,

And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,

The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,-

The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,

The cheerless corridors,

The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see

Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,

The light shone and was spent.
On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A lady with a lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,

Heroic womanhood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: born, 1807.

(See page 14.)

Miss Nightingale, youngest daughter of Mr. W. E. Nightingale of Embley Park, Hants, was born at Florence in 1820. Her whole life has been marked by the purest philanthropy, and chiefly spent in the study and practice of hospital management and nursing. At the time of our alliance with Turkey and France in war with Russia, (1854,) Miss Nightingale undertook the direction of a band of lady-superintendents and nurses who were sent out to our military hospitals in the Crimea, where, by her skilful organization, her untiring zeal, and personal devotion, she saved the lives of many of our sick soldiers, and alleviated the sufferings of all.

THE EVERLASTING MEMORIAL.
UP and away, like the dew of the morning,
Soaring from earth to its home in the sun,
So let me steal away, gently and lovingly,
Only remembered by what I have done.

Up and away, like the odours of sunset,

That sweeten the twilight as darkness comes on; So be my life, a thing felt but not noticed,

And I but remembered by what I have done.

Yes, like the fragrance that wanders in freshness,
When the flowers that it came from are closed up and
gone,

So would I be to this world's weary dwellers,
Only remembered by what I have done.

Needs there the praise of the love-written record,
The name and the epitaph graved on the stone?
The things we have lived for,-let them be our story,
We ourselves but remembered by what we have done.
I need not be missed, if my life has been bearing
(As its summer and autumn moved silently on)
The bloom, and the fruit, and the seed of its season;
I shall still be remembered by what I have done.

I need not be missed if another succeed me;

To reap down those fields which in spring I have sown ; He who ploughed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper,

He is only remembered by what he has done.

Not myself, but the truth that in life I have spoken,
Not myself, but the seed that in life I have sown,

Shall pass on to ages; all about me forgotten,

Save the truth I have spoken, the things I have done.

So let my living be, so be my dying;

So let my name lie, unblazoned, unknown;

Unpraised and unmissed, I shall still be remembered; Yes, but remembered by what I have done.

Horatius Bonar: born, 1808.

Dr. Horatius Bonar is a minister of the Scotch Church, and one of the council of the university of Edinburgh. He is the author of some prose works and of several volumes of poetry, the best-known being Hymns of Faith and Hope, from which the above is taken. Dr. Bonar has edited The Christian Treasury for many years, and the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy since its commencement.

DARTSIDE-1849.

I CANNOT tell what you say, green leaves,
I cannot tell what you say:

But I know that there is a spirit in you,
And a word in you this day.

I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks,
I cannot tell what you say:

But I know that there is a spirit in you,
And a word in you this day.

I cannot tell what you say, brown streams,
I cannot tell what you say:

But I know that in you too a spirit doth live,
And a word doth speak this day.

"Oh green is the colour of faith and truth,
And rose the colour of love and youth,

And brown of the fruitful clay.

Sweet earth is faithful, and fruitful, and young,
And her bridal morn shall rise ere long,

And you shall know what the rocks and the streams,
And the whispering woodlands say.”

Charles Kingsley: 1819-1875.

Charles Kingsley is better known by his prose works than by his verse. But he was a poet at heart, and all his work has the clear ring of true poetry. He was a ready friend of all who were oppressed, and he spoke and wrote fearlessly in their behalf. His novels of Hypatia and Alton Locke are examples of this kind of championship; while Two Years Ago and Westward Ho! deservedly rank as noble works for the manly virtues they describe and teach. Kingsley was rector of Eversley in Hampshire, and became successively Canon of Chester and Canon of Westminster.

THE TEACHINGS OF NATURE.
LESSONS Sweet of spring returning,
Welcome to the thoughtful heart!
May I call ye sense, or learning,—
Instinct pure, or heaven-taught art?