Reading great sermons with its iron tongue!
The old church clock, forever swinging slow,
With moving hands at morning and at even,
Points to the sleepers in the yard below,
Then lifts them upward to the distant heaven.
How will such memories o' er the spirit stray,
Of hopes and joys, of sorrows and of tears;
They are the tomb-stones time will ne'er decay,
Although the moss will gather with the years.


* * * * *




EARLY ENGLISH POETRY.


By Professor Edwin H. Sanborn, LL.D.


Our Saxon ancestors when they conquered England, were rude, barbarous,
and cruel. The gods of their worship were bloodthirsty and revengeful.
Odin, their chief divinity, in his celestial hall drank ale from the
skulls of his enemies. In the year 596, the Monk Augustine, or Austin,
was sent by Pope Gregory to attempt their conversion to Christianity. He
and his associates were so successful that on one occasion ten thousand
converts were baptized in one day. Of course their conversion was
external and nominal. They still clung to their old superstitions and