John Greenleaf Whittier, the poet of the oppressed, was born in Haverhill, Mass., 1807, worked on a farm and on a shoe-bench, and studied at the local academy, until, becoming of age, he went to Hartford, Conn., and began a brief experience in editorial life. Soon after his return to Massachusetts he was elected to the Legislature, and after his duties ended there he left the state for Philadelphia to edit the _Pennsylvania Freeman_. A few years later he returned again, and established his home in Amesbury, the town with which his life and works are always associated. He died in 1892 at Hampton Falls, N.H., where he had gone for his health. _THE TUNE._ "Abends," the smooth triple-time choral joined to Whittier's poem by the music editor of the new _Methodist Hymnal_, speaks its meaning so well that it is scarcely worth while to look for another. Sir Herbert Stanley Oakeley, the composer, was born at Ealing, Eng., July 22, 1830, and educated at Rugby and Oxford. He studied music in Germany, and became a superior organist, winning great applause by his recitals at Edinburgh University, where he was elected Musical Professor. Archbishop Tait gave him the doctorate of music at Canterbury in 1871, and he was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1876. Besides vocal duets, Scotch melodies and student songs, he composed many anthems and tunes for the church--notably "Edina" ("Saviour, blessed Saviour") and "Abends," originally written to Keble's "Sun of my Soul." "THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN PINION." This lay of a lost gift, with its striking lesson, might have been copied from the wounded bird's own song, it is so natural and so clear-toned. The opportune thought and pen of Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth gave being to the little ballad the day he heard the late Dr. George Lorimer preach from a text in the story of Samson's fall (Judges 16:21) "The Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza ... and he did grind in the prison-house." A sentence in the course of the doctor's sermon, "The bird with a broken pinion never soars as high again," was caught up by the listening author, and became the refrain of his impressive song. Rev. Frank M. Lamb, the tuneful evangelist, found it in print, and wrote a tune to it, and in his voice and the voices of other singers the little monitor has since told its story in revival meetings, and mission and gospel services throughout the land. I walked through the woodland meadows Where sweet the thrushes sing, And found on a bed of mosses A bird with a broken wing. I healed its wound, and each morning It sang its old sweet strain, But the bird with a broken pinion Never soared as high again.