THE BLACK-LETTER BIBLE.

I KNOW a Bible, with its pages worn

By fingers, that have long returned to dust, Of men and women with sad hearts forlorn

But for this book of universal trust

In God, and in an everlasting home

For men stout-hearted, who still upward climb, Though oft bewildered, oft they sadly roam

Amongst the shadows of the "hills of time." And when I see where men so oft have found Sweet solaces to wipe away their tears, And know them still alive, I with a bound, O'erleap the gulf of long dividing years,

And live in loving sympathy with those

Who long have passed away from earthly woes.

THE VOICES OF THE FUTURE.

BROTHERS, do you hear the voices

That shall rule the time to be,

In the silence of the future,

Murmuring like a distant sea?

Onward come the wakening peoples!
Onward, like a rising tide;
Onward, with a force resistless,
Sweeping obstacles aside.

Onward come the wakening peoples!

Onward, like a mighty flood;

On to universal conquest,

Guiltless of their brothers' blood.

Onward come the wakening peoples, That shall hold the world in fee, With the spirit of the ages,

Leading them to victory!

Will it be for good, or evil,

That they sweep the barriers downBarriers that so long have held them, Under prince, and peer, and crown?

If you want to read the future,
In the horoscope of Time,

And the destiny of peoples

As they ever upward climb ;—

If you want to read the future,
In the horoscope of Fate,

And the destiny of peoples,

Ere they thunder at the gate ;—

Listen, brothers, to the voices;

Listen what the nations say,

As they come from feudal darkness,

Into democratic day.

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THE VOICES OF THE FUTURE.

Do they say "that self should triumph,
And that death, the end of life;
Each should seek his own advantage,
In a cold and heartless strife?"

If they do, the devils lead them,
From the good, and true, and fair,
Onward to a gulf of madness,
And a shiver of despair.

If they do, the devils lead them,
Onward to an endless curse;

And the peoples rule the nations,
Ruling but to make them worse.

Brothers, listen! for the voices
Tell a different tale to me :

I can hear, amidst the chaos,

"God," "Right," "Truth," "Eternity."

Courage, tremblers! courage, doubters !
Jesus leads the coming van,

With a gentle voice, and earnest,

Preaching brotherhood of man;

Preaching universal kindness;
Preaching universal peace;

In the wakening of the nations,
In the fettered world's release.

Courage, tremblers! courage, doubters!
More of heaven, and less of hell,
In the wakening of the peoples,

That is what the voices tell.