farming. He now resides at Westfield, N. Y., and though seventy-five years of age, leads a very active life, both physically and intellectually. Besides doing a great amount of manual labor, consistent with early habits, he improves his spare intervals reading newspapers, magazines and the latest works of philosophy and science-being a constant student of the leading questions of the day and always abreast of the times. For the source of Mr. Kent's inspiration as a poet the reader is referred to his preface to 66 Sunshine and Storm." H. B. K.

MATTER AND MIND.

PART FIRST.

SEARCH all the realms of matter and of mind,
Scan their relations single and combined,
Make them a problem for solution given
To find what is of earth and what from heaven;
Go to the rocks on which the sunbeams pour
And learn the treasures there laid up in store.
When flint is struck a scintillation flies,
Twinkles a moment and in darkness dies;
Say is it lost, when all is gone and dark,
Or did the flash preclude another spark?
Where is the lightning which the hill top rent?
With that one stroke were all its forces spent?
Did all its power to single purpose tend,
And that performed did its existence end?
Gold is the same although defiled by dross
And an assay may find it without loss;
The cloud which hovers over the expanse
Consumes away before the solar glance,
And seems to turn to nothing on the sight
As it dissolves in the empyrean height;
But ere night fall it may return again
To swell the rills which flow along the plain.
The waving branches which to-day are green,
Touched by a blight will soon be naked, seen
Without a chance that either sun or rain
Will ever wake them into life again.
The change to them remains as only death
While other forms of life seize on their breath.
The frailest bubble on the waters tossed
Still has a being though its form be lost.
Its drops may issue where the fountains teem
And mingle in the waters of the stream.
If matter turns to force and force to soul
Can links be found to make the chain a whole?
The ivy sends its tendrils to entwine
The object that supports its slender vine,
Nor can the sage with all his wisdom find
A better method with his God-like mind.
An instinct guides the beaver and the bee,
Instructs the timid hare in time to flee,

And when his feet shall fail him in the race
To double on the track and blind the chase.
A chain of being on a perfect scale
Must have the parts above too strong to fail;
The upper links must hold the weight below
Or else the whole will in confusion go.
If matter is the base of all the line
And the inert can rise to the Divine,
If rock ground into dust by ponderous power
Opens to sunshine in the spring-time flower,
And by transition in its time shall find
Its nature quite synonymous with mind,
Itself the essence of a living soul
With matter less refined in its control,
Is there no chance pertaining to the plan
That grosser matter will reclaim the man?
Will the coy glances of the lover's eyes
Pass off to live as ether in the skies,
Until at last in state still more refined
They form the moral element of mind?
Now in the trial let us freely own
That mind's another form of flesh and bone.
Call all things matter which pertain to mind
And offer incense to the sighing wind;
Say life awaking from a latent sleep.
Rides on the elements that blindly sweep;
That force inherent, running through the scheme,
Drives onward till it forms a mental stream;
Is there no chance that it will culminate
And then fall back into its first estate?
If soul is subject to contingency
Forever drifting on a restless sea,
Without a beacon light by which to trace
Its past connection to its present place,
Then memory's lost with the expiring breath
And all the past becomes as blank as death;
While with each change the soul begins anew
To grope its way in search of what is true,
Glares for a time till it consumes away
And turns to sinter in its bed of clay,
On being's scale at last to sink so low
As not to answer to the sunbeam's glow;
In nature's useless mortar to be ground
Long as her tireless wheels repeat a round,
Until all which a universe adorns
Returns at last to the primeval forms,
Without a promise of another birth
From all the forces left in heaven or earth.

TRUTH.

THOU art an angel of celestial birth!
O angel, come and make thy home on earth!
Bright visitant! let thy blest light appear,
And chase all moral darkness from our sphere.

R

ROBERT KERR.

OBERT KERR was born at Kilmarnock, Scotland, in March, 1829. Unfortunately, in his early childhood he received a hurt at the hand of a younger brother, which resulted in permanent injury, and he became an invalid for life. His youth unfolded amid scenes and associations full of history and poetry. The time from his sixth to his eighteenth year was spent in the county town of Ayr, two miles from where Burns was born. He knows what earnest struggle for life and culture He labored from early morning till eight at night, then attended evening classes till ten, when he came home to study till one in the morning, preparing his lesson for the next night.

means.

In his twentieth year, he wrote his first poem, "Winter," which he sent to the local paper, of which Rev. Dr. W. M. Taylor, now of New York, was editor, where it appeared in the "Poets' Corner." In 1856 he was chosen to present a public testimonial to Louis Kossuth and crown him with a Kilmarnock bonnet in presence of a large and enthusiastic assembly. A volume published about this time, entitled, "Learn to Live," was the means of securing him admission to Cavendish (Theodore) College, Manchester, through the influence of Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker, now of City Temple, London, who had just founded the institution. In 1859 his poem, "Remember Robert Burns," written on the centennary of the poet's birth, appeared, of which Sir Archibald Alison, Bart., the Historian of Europe, said: "The touching verses on Burns are worthy of a lasting destiny." Since 1860, many of his poems have been fugitives, appearing in papers and magazines. In 1864 he married Margaret Crawford, and their romantic courtship should have longer note than this paper can give. They have eight living children, two of whom are married.

At the close of his college studies he was ordained Rector of the Congregational Church at Caistor, Lincolnshire. While there, in 1866, he published "Sacred Hours by Living Streams,” which contained sermons from his first year's ministry. In 1867 he became Pastor in succession to Rev. Prof. Hunter, at Forres, Scotland, a beautiful district made famous in "Macbeth."

In 1872 he visited the United States, examined the lands along the Northern Pacific Line in Minnesota, returned to Scotland, formed and sent out a Scotch and English colony. In 1874, in compliance with repeated solicitations, he followed as their minister, with his wife and family. Upon his arrival in Minnesota, he found but ten houses on

the town site. He began preaching in the railroad depot, organized a public school, and three months after, formed and opened a church. As soon as the way was opened he moved southward, and has served churches in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Kansas. While on a visit to Scotland he issued "The King of Men." In 1884 he wrote "Auld Kilmarnock Toon," which was issued as a pamphlet and rapidly bought up by his fellow-townsmen. Since coming to America he has written poems and hymns, many of which have been set to appropriate tunes for temperance and Sunday School books. M. S. L. B.

LOUIS KOSSUTH.

"

The noble Hungarian lately said: My hands are empty, but they are clean."

BENEATH the blue of Italian skies,
And the shadows of eighty years,
A rare old man with lustrous eyes
And a tottering step appears.
Sadly he leans on a stronger arm,

And talks of changes he has seen,
Yet one thought cheers him like a charm--
"My hands are empty, but they're clean!”

Oh, Kossuth! Great Hungarian chief!

The record thine early days

Wreathes grandeur round that sentence brief
Which Age's wisdom so display!

Thy lofty aim and pure intent,

Thy love of truth and liberty-—

A halo rich in beauty blent-
Now glorify thy poverty.

We mind when thou did'st bravely lead
The fortunes of thy fatherland,

How nations gazed, and men would read
The stirring news that came to hand.
We mourned for unnamed heroes dead
Whose life in gushing crimson ran,
But shouted gladly when we read—

Dembiuski won:" and "Bem beat Ban!" And when the tide of battle turned,

Our hearts were wrung with keenest woe; While wrath against vile Georgey burned, Who sold his country to her foe!

We mind how in thy Turkish jail,

With but four volumes in thy reach,
In three short years thou did'st not fail
To master our strange English speech.
Then, as with rare magnetic power,

Thy words aroused the souls of men,
They felt as if thy wondrous dower

Had brought Demosthenes again!

We crowned thee in our youthful years

With Scottish cap; and, like a king,
Out townsmen hailed thee with their cheers
That make the very welkin ring.
And reverently we grasped thy hand,
And felt thee great; but now I ween
In thine old age thou'rt truly grand,
With hands so empty, yet so clean!

How high in power, how deep in woe,
A noble man may stand and fall!
When driven to exile thou did'st go,
A carpet bag contained thine all!
You felt the wrecks of baffled hopes
Like gloomy spectres o'er you wave,
As, joyless from life's sunny slopes

You staggered to an obscure grave!

Yet then these thoughts did thee uphold"I never rose to power through blood! I never broke an oath for gold,

Nor sinned against my country's good!" Still from such facts sweet comfort draw, We know thou'lt be what thou hast been— Brave, great, and true, without a flaw,

With hands so empty, yet so clean!

Thy name shall live; and, sure as fate,

When countless years have come and gone, 'Twill shine among the good and great,

With Bruce, and Tell, and Washington.
The sun, now dipping in the west,
Shall beautify a fairer scene-

The home of those supremely blest
Whose hearts are pure, whose hands are clean!

Ho, Magyars! Patriots everywhere!
When he shall pass within the vail,

A noble monument prepare

To tell all times the lofty tale!
In breathing marble let him stand
Where first he gazed on earth and sky,
With hands outspreading to command
The homage of posterity;

Grave, deep, and bold, like autograph,
That through the ages may be seen,
His best and glorious epitaph-

"My hands are empty but they're clean!"

Ho, ye who fain would rule the State,

Who say ye seek your country's weal, Learn what alone makes manhood great, And to this aged patriot kneel! Pure hands alone can nations raise,

The foul must blacken and demean; Be men, though in your closing days

Your hands be empty, if they're clean!