The little gift from out our store Which might have cheered some cheerless hour When they with earth's poor needs were poor. It shows our faults like fires at night; It sweeps their failings out of sight; It clothes their good in heavenly light. O Christ, our life, foredate the work of death And do this now; Thou, who art love, thus hallow our beloved; Not death, but Thou! --Elizabeth Rundle Charles. God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives That lamp due measure of oil: Lamp lighted--hold high, wave wide, Its comfort for others to share! --Muleykeh. THE NEW ERA It is coming! it is coming! The day is just a-dawning When man shall be to fellow-man a helper and a brother; When the mansion, with its gilded hall, its tower and arch and awning, Shall be to hovel desolate a kind and foster-mother. When the men who work for wages shall not toil from morn till even, With no vision of the sunlight, nor flowers, nor birds a-singing; When the men who hire the workers, blest with all the gifts of heaven, Shall the golden rule remember, its glad millennium bringing. The time is coming when the man who cares not for another Shall be accounted as a stain upon a fair creation; Who lives to fill his coffers full, his better self to smother, As blight and mildew on the fame and glory of a nation. The hours are growing shorter for the millions who are toiling, And the homes are growing better for the millions yet to be; And the poor shall learn the lesson, how that waste and sin are spoiling The fairest and the finest of a grand humanity. It is coming! it is coming! and men's thoughts are growing deeper; They are giving of their millions as they never gave before; They are learning the new gospel, man must be his brother's keeper, And right, not might, shall triumph, and the selfish rule no more. --Sarah Knowles Bolton. To a darning-needle once exclaimed the kitchen sieve, "You've a hole right through your body, and I wonder how you live." But the needle (who was sharp) replied, "I too have wondered That you notice my _one_ hole, when in you there are a hundred!" --Saadi, tr. by James Freeman Clarke. LOOKING FOR PEARLS