Page 1 Advertisements Column 7

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3814, 19 March 1881, Page 1

AT THE CHURCH GATE. Although I enter not, Yet round about the spot Oft-times I hover! And near the sacred gate With longing eyes I wait, Expectant of her. The Minster bell tolls out Above the city's rout, And noise and humming: They've hushed the Minster bell: The organ 'gins to swell: > She's coming, she's coming; My lady comes at last, Timid, and stepping fast, And hastening hither. With modeßt eyes downcast, She comes —she's here—she's pastMay heaven go with her! Kneel undisturbed, fair saint! Pour out your praise or plaint, Meekly and duly : I will not enter there, To sully your pure prayer With thoughts unruly. ; But suffer me to pace ; - i Bound the forbidden place, - ' Lingering a minute. Like out cast spirits who wait And see through heaven's ga!,e Angels within it. Thaokebat. ♦ ; DROPPING A SEED. The land was still; the skies were gray with weeping; Into the soft brown earth the seed she caßt. , Oh, soon, she cried, will come the time of reaping, The golden time when clouds and tears are past! There came a whisper through the autumn haze, " Yea, thou shall find it after many days." Hour after hour she marks the fitful gleaming Of sunlight stealing through the cloudy rift; '. Hour after hour she lingers, idly dreaming, To see the rain fall and the dead leaves drift, , Oh, for some small green sign of life! she prays, Have I not watched and waited many days t At early morning, chilled and sad, she hearkens To stormy winds that through the poplars blow ; Far over hill and plain the heaven darkens, Her field is covered with a Bhroud of snow. Ah, Lord! she sighs, are these thy loving ways ? He answers: " Spake I not of many days ?" The snowdrop blooms: The purple violet glistens On banks of moss that take the sparkling showers j Half cheered, half doubling yet she stays and listens To finchers singing to the shy young flowers; A little longer still his love delays The promised blessing—after many days. 0 happy world she cries the sun is shining ! Above the soil I see the springing green ; 1 could not trust his word without repining, I could not wait in peace for things unseen, Forgive me, Lord, my soul is full of praise ; My doubting heart prolonged thy many days. The British and Foreign Bible Society. The above Society celebrated the jubilee of their Continental Agency a short time ago, and the London Times speaks as foiljws respecting it :— "It ia the head quarters to which myriads of all classes, and most creeds, down to none at all, se.nd subscriptions, donations, legacies, and collections made at public worship or from door to door, to an amount of revenue which many a respectable -State would njoice to hare, as., free and clear. The object is the circulation of the Bible in every language under the sun. The society is no respecter of persons or races in the execution of this work. No people is too savage for it, no manners or intelligence too rudimentary, no language too barbarous, no vocabulary too limited. If pre-historic man could be found in his cave breaking bones with a celt to get at the marrow, the Bible Society would have ready for his use before the end of a twelve month the Bible—the whole Bible aud nothing but the Bible—in his own simple vernacular of squeaks, hiccoughs, stammers, and grunts. The enumeration of the European nationalities which have received many thousand copies of the Society's Bible in their own language, and to a large extent actually paid for them, is appaling and suggestive. Our own version is under revision, and hardly a village preacher mounts his pulpit without offering some important, correction of the text, ofted with a strong doctrinal bearing. It is pronounced almost impossible to produce a French or Spanish Bible which shall not offend either taste or truth in every page. Yet races which politicians are forced to regard as semi-barbarian have been saturated with versions in their "own spoken : tongue. Africa has been diligently searched for peoples, one more barbarous than another, and absolutely destitute of literature, and missionaries of preternatural energy and ability have reduced their speech to writing and given them the Bible in it. The Negro dialect of the West Indies cannot be heard or read by an Englishman without continual provocation to extravagant and unseemly mirth; but the Bible has been translated into it, and is so read in their churches. It has, been printed and published by the Society, though its officials would very properly look twice at any gentleman stepping in to ask for a copy. In the comparison of labour, numbers, devotion,; and cost, the work of the Bible Society beats the vast edifices of the middle ages, or of Egypt itself, the Crusades, th» Continued in Fourth Page*