faith anointed,
And our blind choosing brings us grief and pain;
Through him alone who hath our way appointed,
We find our peace again.

Choose for us, God! nor let our weak preferring
Cheat our poor souls of good thou hast designed;
Choose for us, God! thy wisdom is unerring,
And we are fools and blind.

Let us press on in patient self-denial,
Accept the hardship, shrink not from the loss;
Our portion lies beyond the hour of trial,
Our crown beyond the cross.

--William H. Burleigh.

ALL THINGS WORK GOOD

With strength of righteous purpose in the heart
What cause to fear for consequence of deed?
God guideth then, not we; nor do we need
To care for aught but that we play our part.
Most simple trust is often highest art.
The issue we would fly may be a seed
Ordained by God to bear our souls a meed
Of peace that no self-judging could impart.
"All things work good for him who trusteth God!"
Doth God not love us with a longing love
To make us happy, and hath he not sight
From end to end of our short earthly road?
This, Lord, I hold--aye, _know_ that thou wouldst move
The world to lead one trusting soul aright.

--Edward Harding.

RELIGIOUS INFIDELS

How many chatterers of a creed
Think doubt the gravest sin,
Unmindful of her double birth--
For worry is her twin.

Ah! Christian atheism seems
The most insulting kind,
For, though the tongue says, God is love,
The heart is deaf and blind.

How he who marks the sparrow's fall
Must be aggrieved to see
These loud lip-champions manifest
Such infidelity!

Each fretful line upon their brow,
Dug by the plow of care,
Is treason to their pledge of faith
And satire on their prayer.

O just to hold, without one fear,
The strong, warm Hand above,
With orthodoxy of the heart--
The childlike creed of love!

None such can be a heretic;
Nay, only he forsooth
Who lives the falsity of doubt,
But prates the cant of truth.

--Frederic Lawrence Knowles.

Worry and Fret were two little men
That knocked at my door again and again.
"O pray let us in, but to tarry a night,
And we will be off with the dawning of light."
At last, moved to pity, I opened the door
To shelter these travelers, hungry