Though fading on the stem--
Awakes to blush when morning's lustrous gem
Upon it glows;--

May we awake,
Soothed by Thy priceless balm,
To chant with grateful hearts our morning psalm,
And blessings take.

Or let it be,
That where the palm trees rise,
And crystal streams flow, we uplift our eyes
To Thee!--to Thee!

THE STRENUOUS LIFE

SILAS X. FLOYD

They were having a rough-and-tumble time of it and Pansy was getting
some pretty hard blows. She took them all good-naturedly, nevertheless,
and tried to give as good as she received, much to the delight of her
little boy friends. A lady who was standing near, afraid for the little
girl, chided the boys and said:

"You shouldn't handle Pansy so roughly--you might hurt her."

And then Pansy looked up in sweet surprise and said with amusing
seriousness:

"No; they won't hurt me. I don't break easy."

It was a thoroughly childlike expression, but it had more wisdom in it
than Pansy knew. She spoke of a little girl's experience with dolls,
some of which, as she had learned, broke very easily. Pansy knew how
delightful it was to have a doll that didn't break so easily. Though she
was not a homely girl by any means, yet she wanted it understood that
she was not like a piece of china. That was why the other children liked
her so much--because she knew how to rough it without crying or
complaining at every turn. Pansy was not a cry-baby.

There is all the time, my dear boys and girls, a great demand everywhere
all through life for people who don't break easily--people who know how
to take hard knocks without going all to pieces. The game of life is
sometimes rough, even among those who mean to play fair. It is very
trying when we have to deal with people who break easily, and are always
getting hurt and spoiling the game with their tears and complaints. It
is so much better when we have to deal with people who, like little
Pansy, do not break easily. Some of them will laugh off the hardest
words without wincing at all. You can jostle them as you will, but they
don't fall down every time you shove them, and they don't cry every time
they are pushed aside. You can't but like them, they take life so
heartily and so sensibly. You don't have to hold yourself in with them
all the time. You can let yourself out freely without being on pins as
to the result. Young people of this class make good