hope and fear,
Reasoned thus her anxious heart;
“If to touch him I draw near,
All my suffering shall depart.
“While the crowd around him stand,
I will touch,” the sufferer said;
Forth she reached her timid hand—
As she touched her sickness fled.
“Who hath touched me?” Jesus cried;
“Virtue from my body’s gone.”
From the crowd a voice replied,
“Why inquire in such a throng?”
Faint with fear through every limb,
Yet too grateful to deny,
Tremblingly she knelt to him,
“Lord!” she answered, “it was I!”
Kindly, gently, Jesus said—
Words like balm unto her soul—
“Peace upon thy life be shed!
Child! thy faith has made thee whole!”
Died of Starvation
They forced him into prison,
Because he begged for bread;
“My wife is starving—dying!”
In vain the poor man plead.1
They forced him into prison,
Strong bars enclosed the walls,
While the rich and proud were feasting
Within their sumptuous halls.
He’d striven long with anguish.
Had wrestled with despair;
But his weary heart was breaking
’Neath its crushing load of care.
And he prayed them in that prison,
“Oh, let me seek my wife!”
For he knew that want was feeding
On the remnant of her life.
That night his wife lay moaning
Upon her bed in pain;
Hunger gnawing at her vitals,
Fever scorching through her brain.
She wondered at his tarrying,
He was not wont to stay;
’Mid hunger, pain and watching,
The moments waned away.
Sadly crouching by the embers,
Her famished children lay;
And she longed to gaze upon them,
As her spirit passed away.
But the embers were too feeble.
She could not see each face,
So she clasped her arms around them—
’Twas their mother’s last embrace.
They loosed him from his prison,
As a felon from his chain;
Though his strength was hunger bitten,
He sought his home again.
Just as her spirit linger’d
On Time’s receding shore,
She heard his welcome footstep
On the threshold of the door.
He was faint and spirit-broken,
But, rousing from despair,
He clasped her icy fingers,
As she breathed her dying prayer.
With a gentle smile and blessing,
Her spirit winged its flight,
As the morn, in all its glory.
Bathed the world in dazzling light.
There was weeping, bitter weeping,
In the chamber of the dead.
For well the stricken husband knew
She had died for want of bread.
A Mother’s Heroism
When the noble mother of Lovejoy heard of her son’s death, she said, “It is well! I had rather he should die so than desert his principles.”
The murmurs of a distant strife
Fell on a mother’s ear;
Her son had yielded up his life,
Mid scenes of wrath and fear.
They told her how he’d spent his breath
In pleading for the dumb,
And how the glorious martyr wreath
Her child had nobly won.
They told her of his courage high,
Mid brutal force and might;
How he had nerved himself to die
In battling for the right.
It seemed as if a fearful storm
Swept wildly round her soul;
A moment, and her fragile form
Bent ’neath its fierce control.
From lip and brow the color fled—
But light flashed to her eye:
“ ’Tis well! ’tis well!” the mother said,
“That thus my child should die.
“ ’Tis well that, to his latest breath,
He plead for liberty;
Truth nerved him for the hour of death,
And taught him how to die.
“It taught him how to cast aside
Earth’s honors and renown;
To trample on her fame and pride,
And win a martyr’s crown.”
The Fugitive’s Wife
It was my sad and weary lot
To toil in slavery;
But one thing cheered my lowly cot—
My husband was with me.
One evening, as our children played
Around our cabin door,
I noticed on his brow a shade
I’d never seen before;
And in his eyes a gloomy night
Of anguish and despair;—
I gazed upon their troubled light,
To read the meaning there.
He strained me to his heaving heart—
My own beat wild with fear;
I knew not, but I sadly felt
There must be evil near.
He vainly strove to cast aside
The tears that fell like rain:—
Too frail, indeed, is manly pride,
To strive with grief and pain.
Again he clasped me to his breast,
And said that we must part:
I tried to speak—but, oh! it seemed
An arrow reached my heart.
“Bear not!” I cried, “unto your grave,
The yoke you’ve borne from birth;
No longer live a helpless slave,
The meanest thing on earth!”
The Contrast
They scorned her for her sinning,
Spoke harshly of her fall,
Nor lent the hand of mercy
To break her hated thrall.
The dews of meek repentance
Stood in her downcast eye:
Would no one heed her anguish?
All pass her coldly by?
From the cold, averted glances
Of each reproachful eye,
She turned aside, heart-broken,
And laid her down to die.
And where was he, who sullied
Her once unspotted name;
Who lured her from life’s brightness
To agony and shame?
Who left her on life’s billows,
A wrecked and ruined thing;
Who brought the winter of despair
Upon Hope’s blooming spring?
Through the halls of wealth and fashion
In gaiety and pride,
He was leading to the altar
A fair and lovely bride!
None scorned him for his sinning,
Few saw it through his gold;
His crimes were only foibles,
And these were gently told.
Before him rose a vision,
A maid of beauty rare;
Then a pale, heart-broken woman,
The image of despair.
Next came a sad procession,
With many a sob and tear;
A widow’d, childless mother
Totter’d by an humble bier.
The vision quickly faded,
The sad, unwelcome sight;
But his lip forgot its laughter.
And his eye its careless light.
A moment, and the flood-gates
Of memory opened wide;
And remorseful recollection
Flowed like a lava tide.
That widow’s wail of anguish
Seemed strangely blending there,
And mid the soft lights floated
That image of despair.
The Prodigal’s Return
He came—a wanderer; years of sin
Had blanched his blooming cheek,
Telling a tale of strife within,
That words might vainly speak.
His feet were bare, his garments torn,
His brow was deathly white;
His heart was bleeding, crushed and worn,
His soul had felt a blight.
His father saw him; pity swept
And yearn’ d
