OUR

JOHN G. WHITTIER

UR fathers' God; from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,"

We meet to-day, united, free,

And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.

Here, when of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word of Thine,
Whose echo is the glad refrain

Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.

Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.

Thou who hast here in concord furled
The war-flags of a gathered world,
Beneath our Western skies fulfill
The Orient's mission of good will;
And, freighted with love's golden fleece,
Send back the Argonauts of peace.

For art and labor met in truce,

For beauty made the bride of use,

We thank Thee, while withal we crave
The austere virtues, strong to save;
The honor, proof to place or gold;
The manhood, never bought or sold.

O, make Thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gifts of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law,
And, cast in some diviner mold,
Let the new cycle shame the old !

ONE BY ONE

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER

NE by one the sands are flowing,

ON

One by one the moments fall;
Some are coming, some are going;
Do not strive to grasp them all.

One by one thy duties wait thee-
Let thy whole strength go to each,

Let no future dreams elate thee,

Learn thou first what these can teach.

One by one (bright gifts from heaven)
Joys are sent thee here below;
Take them readily when given
Ready, too, to let them go.

Shadows passing through the land.

Do not look at life's long sorrow;
See how small each moment's pain;
God will help thee for to-morrow,
So each day begin again.

Every hour that fleets so slowly
Has its task to do or bear;
Luminous the crown, and holy,
When each gem is set with care.

Do not linger with regretting,
Or for passing hours despond;
Nor, thy daily toil forgetting,
Look too eagerly beyond.

Hours are golden links, God's token, Reaching Heaven; but, one by one, Take them, lest the chain be broken. Ere the pilgrimage be done.

THE ORIGIN OF ROAST PIG

CHARLES LAMB

Charles Lamb was born in London in 1775. He was a nervous, timid boy and had an impediment in his speech. He devoted his life to an older sister, who during temporary insanity killed her mother. He was both poet and essayist, but noted chiefly for his prose writings. Among the more noted of his essays are "Dream Children," "Praise of Chimney Sweeps," "Mrs. Battle on Whist," and "Roast Pig." He died in 1834.

LAMB

ANKIND, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cook's Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother,) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some

sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with a cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it,) which was of much more importance, a fine litter of newborn pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs.

While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? Not from the burned cottage-he had smelt that smell before; indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted — crackling. Again he felt and fumbled at the