All that's worthy is in it combined;

All that's lovely there gladdens all souls: There with greatness is goodness conjoined, And all last while eternity rolls.

"There is a bright world for your home,
Where love is the only wealth needed;
Where changes and shipwrecks ne'er come,
And hope by fruition 's succeeded.
There the hearts that have wasted away

Swell to fulness in heaven's bright streams; And the faith that endured through earth's day, Turns to knowledge in those brighter beams.

"There is a bright world, where the ties That failed to hold hearts in their power Are merged in the bonds of the skies,

As lakes drink the drops of the shower. There the erring, reclaimed from their way, Shine once more in the glory of truth; And the loved, who, neglected, decay, Bloom again in the freshness of youth.

"There is a dear world, where our God No parents from children will sever, Where trials have never yet trod,

And affection enlarges forever.

There the lost of this earth are all found;
There the dead are to life all restored;
And the simple in knowledge abound,
And rejoice to the praise of the Lord.

"That world of your choice is above; Our Father's its light and its glory: Its air is the purest of love;

Its language, redemption's glad story;

And the joys that there beam from all hearts,
Overflow with rejoicing each soul;
For the bliss, unto each, God imparts,

Is the blessing that gladdens the whole.

Then look up from the earth and rejoice, O rejoice! For in heaven, IN HEAVEN 'S the world of your choice!

THE SUNSET GUN.

WRITTEN IN SIGHT OF AN ENCAMPMENT.

BY D. J. MANDELL.

THE SUN had gathered his glories in,
To array himself for rest :

Like a Deity wrapped in a robe of flame,
He had sunk within the west.

The light was fading from vale and grove,
And the sparkle from the rill,

When I heard the roar of the sunset gun
Resounding from the hill.

It broke in thunder the startled air,

Like the war-peal winged with death; And its curling smoke, on the zephyr borne, Seemed like the battle's breath.

Yet it spake no strife, and it roused no dread,
With its wild and warlike din;

And it shot no deadly and pond'rous bolt,
The prize of blood to win.

I knew that Nature's sad hour had come,

For her glory fled away,—

That, in weeds of gloom, and in tears of dew,

She mourned departed day.

And that sunset gun seemed her voice sublime,

Uplifted in woe to weep,

And its less'ning echoes her stifled sobs,

As she grieved herself to sleep.

O, that sunset gun had a welcome peal,
Though in clamor it hastened by !
To the soldier worn it announced relief,
And told him that rest was nigh.
The citizen sought his peaceful home,
As its rumbling tones sped on;

For it taught that his toil again had closed
With another day just gone.

When my sun of life shall retire at last,
When its light fades from my heart,
And the rending voice of triumphant death
Shall bid me from earth depart,

It will raise no fear; for its welcome sound,
Like the gun, at close of day,

Will herald repose, and from toils and cares Will hasten my soul away.

GETHSEMANE.

HOLY on earth, be it in vale or bower,
In lofty minsters or on chosen mounts,
In the dim cloister, or the ruined tower,
Or the wild solitude, mid woodland founts, -
Wherever man accounts

The sterner conflicts of his fettered soul,
Where'er unworded hope hath heavenward stole,
He hath called down a holy presence there,

And earth, and earthly fanes are purified by prayer.

How more than hallowed, then, that lonely spot,
Where the dim shadows of the olive fell
On the o'erburdened Saviour! Like some grot
In its soft robe of sea-light was that dell;

And the low murmuring swell

Of Cedron died upon its vine-clad brink:

And there, by grief oppressed, there didst THOU Sink!
There, prostrate on the dewy turf, didst pray
That thy last cup of woe might pass undrained away!

What agony was thine, O Son of God!

The untried spirit strives in vain to know
Thy burning depths of grief! The silent sod,
Wet with thy heart-drops, might more clearly show
The mastery of thy woe,

Than language coined by brains that never wept
Big drops of agony! Nay, they who kept

The record of thy sorrows, only dare

To tell in deeds that speak, the conflict of thy prayer!