And whose leaves, the nations healing,
Scatter joy from pole to pole.
’Tis a pearl of price exceeding
All the gems in ocean found;—
To its precepts ever listening,
In its truths may I abound.
Rural Retirement, Va.
“WHO SHALL BE THE GREATEST?”
No. 1.
A teacher of great wisdom is seated in the midst of a class of students, who long have hung with breathless silence on the wonderful words which fall from his lips. His class is composed of persons from nearly all conditions and callings of life. Some have been nurtured on the bosom of the deep; some dwelt from early childhood under the shadows of venerable mountains, and caught from them true nobility and loftiness of soul; others, doubtless, spent their days in the peaceful pursuits of husbandry; while one, at least, has lived amid the active duties of public life, demanding, perhaps, with Shylock relentlessness, the uttermost farthing from the hand of his debtor.