Brethren, Go!

A VALEDICTION.

Brethren, go! the day is bright'ning As the sultry noon steals on, And the fields, already whit'ning, Tell of labor to be done.

There are toilsome days before you, Burdens that you may not shun, Clouds will gather darkly o'er you, Reeds will fail you one by one.

Yet go forth to strong endeavor, 'Neath the shadow of the cross; He who calls will leave you never,-- Never let you suffer loss!

Go; the voices of the dying Float on every passing breeze; Tones of wild, imploring crying Come from lands beyond the seas!

Go where pain and sorrow languish, Go where Sin works strife and woe, Cleanse Earth's stain, and heal her anguish, Jesus calls you--brethren, go!

OUR NATION'S BIRTHDAY.

JULY 1ST, 1867.

Ring out your glad peals of rejoicing! Wake Music's enlivening strain! Let the sound float abroad o'er your waters, And echo through valley and plain; From the shores of the far-distant Fundy, To the lakes of the limitless West, Let the sound of a People's exulting Go forth in its joyous unrest!

For a great Christian Nation, this morning, From fragments disjointed made one, With the laws and the speech of old England, Looks up to the new-risen sun; And, scarce conscious as yet of her mission-- Of the wealth of her young, earnest life-- Starts out in the march of the nations, To a future with perils how rife!

Yet who shall not hope for that future-- God's wide-open Book in her hand, With her sturdy and truth-loving yeomen, Her broad-spreading acres of land?-- And who does not welcome the rising Of a new star of promise this morn, Whose beams shall illumine the darkness Of millions that yet are unborn?

Then hail we, in songs of rejoicing, Our father-land over the sea, Britannia, pride of the ocean, The home of the gallant and free!-- Hail, Queen of dominions that girdle The world like an emerald zone, VICTORIA, Head of three Empires, Meek Sovereign of Earth's proudest throne!

And hail to our new-born Dominion! Hail, Canada, happy and blest! May thy flag ever wave o'er the freest, Most glorious clime of the West; Be freedom thy watchword, and Onward, Thy motto, still cherished and true, And ever abroad on the breezes Float thy time-honored "RED, WHITE AND BLUE."

OUR FIELD IS THE WORLD.

Our field is the world!--let us forth to the sowing, O'er valley and mountain, o'er desert and plain, Beside the still waters through cool meadows flowing, O'er regions unblest by the dew and the rain;-- Let us scatter the seed, though in sorrow and weeping, Though fields should be verdureless, wintry, and bare, The Lord of the harvest hath still in His keeping Each seed as it falls, and will guard it with care.

Our field is the world!--let us forth to the reaping; The long day is waning, the eve draweth nigh; Faint omens of storm up the heavens are creeping, And the sigh of the tempest is heard in the sky;-- The work-hour is brief, but the rest is forever, Then stay not for weariness, languor, or pain, But forth to the harvest with earnest endeavor, And gather with gladness the sheaves that remain.

Our field is the world!--let us forth to the gleaning, The stores may be small that our labors reward, Yet One from the height of His glory is leaning, Attent to behold what we do for the Lord;-- Where, haply, some reaper has passed on with singing, O'erladen with sheaves for the garner above, May yet be some handfuls that wait for our bringing, To crown with completeness the stores of His love.

Our field is the world!--whether sowing or reaping, Or gleaning the handfuls that others have passed, Or waiting the growth of the seed that, with weeping, On rocky and desolate plains we have cast, Yet each for his toiling, and each for his mourning, Shall sometime rejoice when the harvest is done, And know, in the flush of Eternity's morning, That the toil, the reward, and the glory are one.