I thought beside the water's flow To rest my head upon the sheaves; What matters now for promise lost, Through blast of spring or summer rains! What if the grape be blighted? Thine Thou lovest still the poor; O, blest THE RECONCILER. Our dreams are reconciled, Since Thou didst come to turn them all to Truth; Each mythic tale sublime Of strength to save, of sweetness to subdue, 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, 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, Thou, Brother of our own from bonds released- 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 ! Slacked the pace or missed the way. Yes, we own life's battle lost : Bleeding, torn, we quit the field; But I see the battle won By less daring hearts than mine; Humbler brows the laurels twine. Yet, perchance, that star-like prize 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 |