A HOME AND A HEARTY WELCOME.
All day has the air been busy,
As the daylight hours went by,
With the laugh of the children's gladness,
Or their pitiful, hopeless cry.
But now all is hushed in silence,
They are lying in slumber deep:
While I ask, in this solemn midnight,
Where do the children sleep?
We know there are children sleeping
In many a happy home,
Where sickness rarely enters,
Where want may never come.
Their hands in prayer were folded
Ere they laid them down to rest,
And on rosy lip and soft white brow
Were a mother's kisses pressed.
They sleep and dream of angels;
Ah! well may their dreams be fair!—
Their home is now so like a heaven,
They seem already there.
But where are the children sleeping
In these wretched streets around,
Where sin, and want, and sorrow
Their choicest haunt have found?
Will you climb this broken staircase,
And glance through this shattered door;
Oh, can there be children sleeping
On that filthy and crowded floor?
Yes! old and young together,
A restless, moaning heap;
O God! while they thus are sleeping,
How dare Thy children sleep?
Does the night air make you shiver,
As the stream sweeps coldly by?
(Cold as the hearts of the heedless),
Here, too, do the children lie.
An archway their only shelter;
The pavement their nightly bed;
Thou, too, when on earth, dear Saviour,
Hadst nowhere to lay Thy head.
So we know Thou art here, dear Master,
Thy form we can almost see;
Do we tear Thy sad voice saying,
"Ye did it not to Me?"
Yes, chill is the wind-swept archway,
The pavement is cold and hard
Better the workhouse coffin,
Softer the graveyard sward.
Thank God! yet we say it weeping,
Thank God for many a grave!
There sleep the little children
Whom Christians would not save!
Yet smiles through our tears are dawning
When we think of the hope that lies
In our children's Land of Promise,
'Neath the clear Canadian skies.
Though the frost he thick on the windows,
Though the roof with snow is white,
We know our Canadian children
Are safe and warm to-night.
There thick are the homespun blankets,
And the buffalo robes are warm;
Then why should these children shiver
Out here in the winter storm?
Why wait till the prison claims them?
Why wait till of hope bereft
For that fair young girl the river
Be the only refuge left?
Come! help us, answer the message
Now pealing across the seas—
"A home and a hearty welcome
For hundreds such as these!"
It comes from broad Ontario,
And from Nova Scotia's shore;
They have loved and sheltered our gathered waifs,
They have room for thousands more.