Our Sacrifice is _one_; _One_ priest before the throne,-- The crucified, the risen Son, Redeemer, Lord alone! And sighs from contrite hearts that spring, Our chief, our choicest offering. Oh, why should they who love _One_ Gospel to unfold, Who look for _one_ bright home above, On earth, be strange and cold? Why, subjects of the Prince of Peace. In strife abide, and bitterness? Oh, may that holy prayer, His tenderest and his last, The utterance of his latest care, Ere to his throne he pass’d,-- No longer unfulfill’d remain The world’s offence, the people’s stain! Head of thy church beneath, The catholic,--the true,-- On her disjointed members breathe, Her broken frame renew! Then shall thy perfect will be done When Christians love and live as _one_. _E. Robinson._ O Thou Eternal _One_! whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide, Unchanged through time’s all-devastating flight, Thou only God! _From the Russian._ PARADISE. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto Thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in _Paradise_.--Luke, xxiii. 43. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the _Paradise_ of God.--Revelation, ii. 7. So on he fares, and to the border comes Of Eden, whose delicious _Paradise_ Now nearer crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound, the champaign head Of a steep wilderness, whose hoary sides, With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied: and overhead up-grew Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar and pine, and fir, and branching palm; A sylvan scene! And as the ranks ascend, Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops The verdurous wall of _Paradise_ up-sprung; Which to our general sire gave prospect large Into his nether empire neighb’ring round. _Milton._ Say’st thou there was no “_Paradise_ of God?” No happy, sinless state of early man? Ask all the ages past, each record scan, And see if always cursed was this now barren sod. Go ask the Greek--he tells of Golden age, When the god-governed earth was heavenly pure; When never death, nor woes men now endure Had entered here, nor hate, nor guile, nor rage. The eastern Magian speaks of earliest days, When holy Oromasdes reign’d o’er man: The far Egyptian tells Osiris’ praise, Governing all in peace, ere rude revolt began. And wilt thou God’s own _Paradise_ deny, When e’en the heathen tales affirm it ceaselessly? _Ann Flinders._