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WHEN I AWAKE, I AM STILL WITH THEE.

S

BY MRS. H. B. STOWE.

TILL, still with thee, when purple morning breaketh,
When the bird waketh and the shadows flee;

Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with thee!

Alone with thee, amid the mystic shadows,
The solemn hush of nature newly born;
Alone with thee in breathless adoration,
In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.

As in the dawning o'er the waveless ocean
The image of the morning star doth rest,
So in this stillness thou beholdest only

Thine image in the waters of my breast.

Still, still with thee! as to each new-born morning
A fresh and solemn splendor still is given,
So doth this blessed consciousness, awaking,

Breathe, each day, nearness unto thee and heaven.

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber,
Its closing eye looks up to thee in prayer,
Sweet the repose beneath thy wings o'ershading,
But sweeter still to wake and find thee there.

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning
When the soul waketh and life's shadows flee;
O, in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning,

Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with thee!

LAUGHTER.

BY JULIUS CHARLES HARE.

I

HAVE seen faces which, so long as you let them lie in

their sleepy torpor, unshaken and unstirred, have a creamy softness and smoothness, and might beguile you into suspecting their owners of being gentle: but, if they catch the sound of a laugh, it acts on them like thunder, and they also turn sour. Nay, strange as it may seem, there have been such incarnate paradoxes as would rather see their fellow-creatures cry than smile.

But is not this in exact accordance with the spirit which pronounces a blessing on the weeper, and a woe on the laugher?

Not in the persons I have in view. That blessing and woe are pronounced in the knowledge how apt the course of this world is to run counter to the kingdom of God. They who weep are declared to be blessed, not because they weep, but because they shall laugh: and the woe threatened to the laughers is in like manner, that they shall mourn and weep. Therefore they who have this spirit in them will endeavor to forward the blessing, and to avert the woe. They will try to comfort the mourner, so as to lead him to rejoice and they will warn the laugher, that he may be preserved from the mourning and weeping, and may exchange his passing for lasting joy. But there are many who merely indulge in the antipathy, without opening their

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