I thought beside the water's flow
Awhile to be beneath the leaves,
I thought in autumn's harvest glow

To rest my head upon the sheaves;
But, lo! methinks the day was brief
And cloudy; flower, nor fruit, nor leaf
I bring, and yet accepted, free,
And blest, my Lord, I come to thee.

What matters now for promise lost,

Through blast of spring or summer rains!
What matter now for purpose crost,
For broken hopes and wasted pains;
What if the olive little yields,

What if the grape be blighted? Thine
The corn upon a thousand fields,
Upon a thousand hills the vine.

Thou lovest still the poor; O, blest
In poverty beloved to be!
Less lowly in my choice confessed,
I love the rich in loving thee!
My spirit bare before thee stands,
I bring no gift, I ask no sign,
I come to thee with empty hands,
The surer to be filled from thine!

THE RECONCILER.

Our dreams are reconciled,

Since Thou didst come to turn them all to Truth;
The World, the Heart, are dreamers in their youth
Of visions beautiful, and strange and wild;
And Thou, our Life's Interpreter, dost still
At once make clear these visions and fulfil;
Each dim sweet Orphic rhyme,

Each mythic tale sublime

Of strength to save, of sweetness to subdue,
Each morning dream the few,

Wisdom's first lovers told, if read in Thee comes true.

O Bearer of the key

That shuts and opens with a sound so sweet

Its turning in the wards is melody,
All things we move among are incomplete
And vain until we fashion them in Thee!
We labor in the fire-

Thick smoke is round about us, through the din Of words that darken counsel; clamors dire

Ring from thought's beaten anvil, where within. Two Giants toil, that even from their birth With travail pangs have torn their mother Earth, And wearied out her children with their keen Upbraidings of the other, till between

Thou camest, saying, "Wherefore do ye wrong Each other?-ye are Brethren." Then these twain Will own their kindred, and in Thee retain

Their claims in peace, because Thy land is wide As it is goodly! here they pasture free,

This lion and this leopard, side by side,
A little child doth lead them with a song;
Now, Ephraim's envy ceaseth, and no more
Doth Judah anger Ephraim chiding sore,
For one did ask a Brother, one a King,
Lo dost Thou gather them in one, and bring-
Thou, King forevermore, forever Priest,

Thou, Brother of our own from bonds released-
A Law of Liberty,

A Service making free,

A Commonweal where each has all in Thee.

GREG, SAMUEL, an English philanthropist and miscellaneous religious writer, was born at Manchester, September 6, 1804; died at Bollington, near Macclesfield, May 14, 1876. He was educated at Unitarian schools in Nottingham and Bristol; and after spending two years at home learning mill-work, he attended a course of University lectures at Edinburgh. In 1832 he established a mill at Bollington; and in 1838 he married Mary Needham, afterward known as the authoress of Little Walter, a Mother's First Lessons in Religion for the Younger Classes. The workpeople of his mill were the all-absorbing objects of his interest. Certain experiments in machinery, however, unhappily resulted in the alienation of his employees; and he retired from business and turned his attention to religious literature. He published Scenes from the Life of Jesus (1854) and Letters on Religious Belief (1856). Louis Kossuth was his guest in 1857; and in the same year he commenced his Sunday evening lectures to the working classes, which he continued for the remainder of his life. After his death appeared his Layman's Legacy in Prose and Verse (1877). Dean Stanley says of him: "The glimpses which he gave to me of the combination of a sincere trust in Divine goodness, with a sincere attachment to truth and freedom and progress, furnished a proof such as we can in these

latter days ill afford to lose, that such a combination is not so impossible as the narrow notions of contending parties would fain represent."

BEATEN BEATEN !

Tell me now, my saddened soul !
Tell me where we lost the day—
Failed to win the shining goal,

Slacked the pace or missed the way.
We are beaten :-face the truth!
'Twas not thus we thought to die,
When the prophet-dreams of youth
Sang of joy and victory.

Yes, we own life's battle lost :

Bleeding, torn, we quit the field;
Bright success-ambition's boast-
Here to happier men we yield.
And if some strong hero's sword
Had struck down my weaker blade,
Not one coward, moaning word
Had the weeping wound betrayed.

But I see the battle won

By less daring hearts than mine;
Feebler feet the race have won,

Humbler brows the laurels twine.
See there! at the glittering goal,
See that smiling winner stand!
Measure him from head to soul-
'Tis no giant in the land.

Yet, perchance, that star-like prize
Is not lost-but not yet won;
Lift aloft thine earth-bound eyes;
Seek the goal still further on;
Far beyond that sinking sun
Swells a brighter, happier shore;
There a nobler race is run :

Hark! He bids thee try once more.

GREG, WILLIAM RATHBONE, an English essayist, born at Manchester in 1809; died at Wimbledon, November 15, 1881. In 1864 he succeeded J. R. McCulloch as Comptroller of the Royal Stationery Office. He was a frequent contributor, upon social topics, to periodicals. His principal 'books are: Investments for Working Classes (1852); Political Problems for Our Age and Country (1870); The Enigmas of Life (1872); Essays on Political and Social Science, Creed of Christendom (1873); Rocks Ahead, or the Warnings of Cassandra (1874); and Mistaken Aims and Attainable Ideals of the Working Classes (1876).

The Saturday Review spoke of the Essays which appeared after his death as "the last words of a man of independent and vigorous judgment, who formed his opinions for no other man's pleasure, and was indifferent whether what he said found favor with the great body of his hearers, or with any party among them." And Leslie Stephen's National Biography says: "It was Greg's special function to discourage unreasonable expectations from political or even social reforms, and in general to caution democracy against the abuse of its power. His apprehensions may sometimes appear visionary, and sometimes exaggerated, but are in general the previsions of a far-seeing man, acute in observing the tendencies of the age."

VOL. XII.-4