Say, which is best, true piety or gold?
This metal worship or the living God?
Ye cannot have them both, so we are told,
See to it then which pathway shall be trod.

Array your idol in his robes of state!
Set up his image on his golden throne!
Throw open wide the temple's gilded gate,
And thus proclaim that gold is God alone!

Or else array yourselves in plain attire;
Set up the love of Christ in every heart
Let each affection feel its fervent fire,
And in this money-worship bear no part.

Now make your choice between your gold and heaven;
Buy all the sinful pleasures wealth can bring;
Increase them through the years to mortals given
And die, at last--a beggar--not a king.

Yes, make your choice between your gold and heaven;
Find peace and pardon in a Saviour's blood;
Freely bestow what, free to you, is given,
And meet, at last, the welcoming smile of God.

THE DOUBLE NIGHT.

BY MORRISON HEADY,

Of the Kentucky Institution for the Blind.

_To the shades of Milton and Beethoven_.

"Silence and Darkness, solemn sisters, twins
From ancient Night, who nursed the tender thought
To reason, and on reason build resolve--
That column--of true majesty in man--
Assist me--I will thank you in the grave."--

_Night Thoughts_.

DARKNESS.

Go, bring the harp that once with dirges thrilled,
But now hangs hushed in leaden slumbers,
Save when the faltering hand untimely chilled
Steals o'er its chords in broken numbers.
It hangs in halls where shades of sorrow dwell,
Where echoless Silence tolls the passing bell,
Where shadowless Darkness weaves the shrouding spell
Of parting joys and parting years.
Go, bring it me, sweet friend, and ere we part,
A lay I'll frame, so sad 'twill wring thy heart
Of all its pity, all its tears

As fitful shadows round me gather fast,
And solemn watch my thoughts are holding,
Comes Memory, Panoramist of the Past.
The rising morn of life unfolding,
Now fade from view all living toil and strife;
Time past is now my present; death, my life;
All that exists is obsolete;
While o'er my soul there steals the pensive glow
Of sainted joys that young years only know,
And past scenes, looming dimly, rise and throw
Their lengthening shadows at my feet.

I see a morn domed in by pict