BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
But now what are the weapons by which, under our Omnipotent Leader, the real obstacles in the way of our country's evangelization, the ten thousand mile Sebastopols, are to be leveled? The first columbiad, with range enough to sweep from eternity to eternity, is the Bible, millions of its copies going out, millions on millions. Then there are all the Gospel batteries, manned by seventy thousand pastors and home missionaries, over the head of each one of whom is the shield of Divine protection, and in the right hand of each one the gleaming, two-edged sword of the Infinite Spirit! Hundreds of thousands of private soldiers for Christ, marching under the one-starred, blood-striped flag of Emanuel! On our side, the great and mighty theologians of the land the heavy artillery, and the hundreds of thousands of Christian children the infantry. They are marching on! Episcopacy, with the sublime roll of its liturgies; Methodism, with its battle-cry of "The sword of the Lord and John Wesley;" the Baptist Church, with its glorious navy sailing up our Oregons and Sacramentos and Mississippis; and Presbyterians, moving on with the battle-cry of "The sword of the Lord and John Knox." And then, after awhile will come the great tides of revival, sweeping over the land, the five hundred thousand conversions in 1857 eclipsed by the salvation of millions in a day, and the four American armies of the Lord's host marching toward each other, the Eastern army marching west, the Western army marching east, the Northern army marching south, the Southern army marching north; shoulder to shoulder! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! until they meet mid-continent, having taken America for God!
The thunder of the bombardment is already in the air, and when the last bridge of opposition is taken, and the last portcullis of Satan is lifted, and the last gun spiked, and the last tower dismantled, and the last charger of iniquity shall have been hurled back upon its haunches, what a time of rejoicing!
OUR OWN.
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
If I had known, in the morning,
How wearily all the day
The words unkind would trouble my mind
That I said when you went away,
I had been more careful, darling,
Nor given you needless pain;
But—we vex our own with look and tone
We might never take back again.
For though in the quiet evening
You may give me the kiss of peace,
Yet it well might be that never for me
The pain of the heart should cease;
How many go forth at morning
Who never come home at night,
And hearts have broken for harsh words spoken
That sorrow can ne'er set right.
We have careful thought for the stranger,
And smiles for the sometime guest,
But oft for our own the bitter tone,
Though we love our own the best.
Ah, lip with the curve impatient,
Ah, brow with the shade of scorn,
'T were a cruel fate were the night too late
To undue the work of morn.