for crying:
No strength, no need! Then, Soul of mine,
Look up and triumph rather--
Lo! in the depth of God's Divine,
The Son adjures the Father--
BE PITIFUL, O GOD.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *

THE SIFTING OF PETER.

A FOLK-SONG.

"Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you
as wheat."--LUKE xxii. 31.

In Saint Luke's Gospel we are told
How Peter in the days of old
Was sifted;
And now, though ages intervene,
Sin is the same, while time and scene
Are shifted.

Satan desires us, great and small,
As wheat, to sift us, and we all
Are tempted;
Not one, however rich or great,
Is by his station or estate
Exempted.

No house so safely guarded is
But he, by some device of his,
Can enter;
No heart hath armor so complete
But he can pierce with arrows fleet
Its centre.

For all at last the cock will crow
Who hear the warning voice, but go
Unheeding,
Till thrice and more they have denied
The Man of Sorrows, crucified
And bleeding.

One look of that pale suffering face
Will make us feel the deep disgrace
Of weakness;
We shall be sifted till the strength
Of self-conceit be changed at length
To meekness.

Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache;
The reddening scars remain, and make
Confession;
Lost innocence returns no more;
We are not what we were before
Transgression.

But noble souls, through dust and heat,
Rise from disaster and defeat
The stronger.
And conscious still of the divine
Within them, lie on earth supine
No longer.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

* * * * *

VANITY.

The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
And day and night are the same as one;
The year grows green, and the year grows brown.
And what is it all, when all is done?
Grains of sombre or shining sand,
Gliding into and out of the hand.

And men go down in ships to the seas,
And a hundred ships are the same as one;
And backward and forward blows the breeze,
And what is it all, when all is done?
A tide with never a shore in sight
Getting steadily on to the night.

The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,
And a hundred streams are the same as one;
And the maiden dreameth her love-lit dream,
And what is it