The Isles of Huron.

BRIGHT are the countless isles which crest
With waving woods wide Huron's breast,-
Her countless isles, that love too well
The crystal waters whence they rise,
Far from her azure depths to swell,
Or wanton with the wooing skies;

Nor, jealous, soar to keep the Day
From laughing in each rippling bay,
But floating on the flood they love,

Soft whispering, kiss her breast, and seek No passions of the air above,

No fires that burn the thunder-peak.

Algoma o'er Ontario throws

Fair forest heights and mountain snows;
Strong Erie shakes the orchard plain
At great Niagara's defiles,

And river-gods o'er Lawrence reign,
But Love is king in Huron's isles.

Gaelic Legends.

OFT the savage Tale in telling
Less of Love than Wrath and Hate,
Hath within its fierceness dwelling
Some pure note compassionate.

Mark, if rude their nature, stronger,
Manlier are the minds that keep
Thought on rightful vengeance longer
Than on those who can but weep.

Better sing the horrid battle

Than its cause of crime and wrong;
Sing great life-deeds! the death-rattle
Is too common for a song.

Lays where man in fight rejoices
Sang our Sires, from Sire to Son;
Heard and loved the hero voices,

"Dare, and more than life is won!"

The

MARQUIS OF LORNE.

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Qu'Appelle" Valley.

MORNING, lighting all the prairies,
Once of old came, bright as now,
To the twin cliffs, sloping wooded
From the vast plain's even brow:
When the sunken valley's levels

With the winding willowed stream,
Cried, "Depart, night's mists and shadows;
Open-flowered, we love to dream!

Then in his canoe a stranger
Passing onward heard a cry;

Thought it called his name and answered,
But the voice would not reply;
Waited listening, while the glory
Rose to search each steep ravine,
Till the shadowed terraced ridges
Like the level vale were green.

Strange as when on Space the voices
Of the stars' hosannahs fell,

To this wilderness of beauty

Seemed his call "Qu'Appelle? Qu'Appelle?"

For a day he tarried, hearkening,

Wondering, as he went his way,

Whose the voice that gladly called him
With the merry tones of day?

Was it God, who gave dumb Nature
Voice and words to shout to one

Who, a pioneer, came, sunlike,

Down the pathways of the sun? Harbinger of thronging thousands, Bringing plain, and vale, and wood, Things the best and last created, Human hearts and brotherhood!

Long the doubt and eager question
Yet that valley's name shall tell,
For its farmers' laughing children
Gravely call it "The Qu'Appelle!"

REV. HENRY FRANCIS LYTE, M.A.

1793-1847.

BY CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

THIS well-known hymn writer was born at Ednam, Roxburghshire, June 1st, 1793, and died at Nice, whither he had gone in search of health, on November 27th, 1847. As the author of " Abide with me, fast falls the Eventide." Lyte is known throughout the civilized globe. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, taking orders in the Irish Church. For some time he held a curacy at Wexford, but was compelled to leave on account of ill health. In 1823 he settled at Brixham, in Devonshire, where he wrote many of the hymns by which he is now so universally admired. His works are "Poems" chiefly religious, 1833, and "The Spirit of the Psalms," shortly after. Besides "Abide with me," three more of his best known hymns are "Jesus, I my Cross have taken," "Praise my Soul, the King of Heaven," and " Pleasant are thy Courts above." The Rev. gentleman was also the author of "Grace Darling's Death Bed," a pathetic lyric which of itself would be almost sufficient to class him as a "Leading Scottish Poet."

Inscription on a Monument.

TO S-PS.

-

WHAT shall we write on this memorial stone?
Thy merits? Thou didst rest on Christ alone.
Our sorrows? Thou would'st chide the selfish tear.
Our love? Alas, it needs no record here.

Praise to thy God and ours? His truth and love

Are sung in nobler strains by thee above.

What would'st thou have us write? Advice is heard,— "Write, for each reader write, a warning word.

"Bid him look well before him, and within ;

"Talk to his heedless heart of death and sin;

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And if at these he tremble, bid him flee

"To Christ, and find Him all in all, like me."

HENRY FRANCIS LYTE.

205

The Pilgrim's Song.

"There remaineth a rest for the people of God." Heb. iv.

My rest is in heaven: my rest is not here;
Then why should I murmur when trials are near?
Be hushed, my dark spirit! the worst that can come,
But shortens the journey, and hastens thee home.

It is not for me to be seeking my bliss,
And building my hopes in a region like this:
I look for a city which hands have not piled;
I pant for a country by sin undefiled.

The thorn and the thistle around me may grow:

I would not lie down on roses below:

I ask not my portion, I seek not a rest,

Till I find them, O Lord, in Thy sheltering breast.

Afflictions may damp me, they cannot destroy;
One glimpse of Thy love turns them all into joy:
And the bitterest tears, if Thou smile but on them,
Like dew in the sunshine, grow diamond and gem.

Let doubt then, and danger, my progress oppose;
They only make heaven more sweet at the close,
Come joy, or come sorrow, whate'er may befal,
An hour with my God will make up for it all.

A scrip on my back, and a staff in my hand,
I march on in haste through an enemy's land:
The road may be rough, but it cannot be long;
And I'll smooth is with hope, and I'll cheer it with song.

REV. GEO. MACDONALD. M.A. LL.D.

1824.

BY WALTER J. KAYE, M.A.

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GEORGE MACDONALD, was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, December 10th, 1824, and was educated at the parish school there, and at King's College and University, Aberdeen. After taking his degree he became a student for the ministry at the Independent College, Highbury, London, and was for a short time an Independent minister, but soon retired, became a lay member of the Church of England, and settled in London to pursue a literary career. His first work was " Within and Without, a Dramatic Poem," 1856; followed by "Poems," 1857; "Phantastes, a Faërie Romance," 1858; " David Elginbrod," 1862; "Adela Cathcart," 1864; "The Portent, a story of Second Sight," 1864; "Alec Forbes of Howglen," 1865; “ Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood," 1866; "Guild Court," 1867; "The Disciple, and other Poems," 1868; "The Seaboard Parish,' " 1868; "Robert Falconer," 1868; Wilfrid Cumbermede," 1871; "The Vicar's Daughter;" Malcolm," 1874; St. George and St. Michael," 1875; "Thomas Wingfield, Curate," 1876; "The Marquis of Lossie," 1877. Besides these Dr. Macdonald has written books for the young: Dealings with the Fairies," 1867; "Randall Bannerman's Boyhood," 1869; "The Princess and the Goblin," 1871; "At the Back of the North Wind," 1870; and others. He is also the author of " Unspoken Sermons," 1866; and a treatise on the Miracles of our Lord," 1870. In 1871-2 Dr. Macdonald visited the United States, and lectured in most of the principal cities there. In 1877 he received a Civil List pension of £100, in consideration of his contributions to literature. His later works are "The Gifts of the Child Christ, and other poems," 2 vols., 1882; “Castle Warlock," 3 vols., 1882; The Princess and Curdie," a fairy romance, 1882; "Weighed and Wanting," 1882; and "The Wise Woman, a parable," 1883. For some years past, Dr. Macdonald, who is an honorary Doctor of Laws of his own University has lived principally at Bordighera. He contemplates issuing a new volume of poems in about six months.

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