THE DAYS OF OUR AGE.

"The days of our age are threescore years and ten, and, though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow."

Whoso has lived to threescore years and ten
Has filled the term allowed to mortal men ;
Whoso shall add yet half another score
Has, as his gain, sorrow and suffering sore;
Beyond these years a man may draw his breath,
But hardly lives-he hangs 'twixt life and death.
Lord, teach us, whatsoe'er our length of days,
Always to walk in thy most holy ways,

That, when we shall have reached our journey's end,
Thou, as in life, in death be still our friend;

For, living here, we die; there we shall live

That deathless life which Christ alone can give.

ON A POOR MAN'S GRAVE.

"The Lord knoweth them that are His."

Hard was his path in life,

Heavy the load he drew,

How heavy, and how hard,
God only knew!

If, then, he seemed to thee
A laggard in life's race,
Haply to God who knew
He moved apace.

Easy thy path and smooth,
Thy burden too is light,
Fear lest thy speed be not
Speed in God's sight.

He laboured to the end,

Thy life is not yet past, See thou be found, as he Was at the last.

THE POWER OF GOD.

"With God all things are possible."

From the dead carcase of a forest beast
God's saint of old obtained a living feast,
And from a withered fig-tree Jesus gave
A lesson of the faith that's strong to save ;
Thus God can give both food and faith, you see,
From beasts that perish and a withered tree!
Now he, who thus could dying men revive,
Can also make men, when they're dead, alive.

Seest thou yon engine? Had it not a vent,
Whereby the steam pent up within were spent,
'Twould burst its iron prison with loud roar,
And deal around death and destruction sore;
And so, when God doth with his holy fire
The inmost caverns of the heart inspire,
It too, in spite of every obstacle,

Makes itself felt, although invisible,

Yet not to strew the ground with piles of dead
Is the great Spirit sent down by our Head,
But to endow men with a higher life,

Still to be theirs after this mortal strife.