USA > California > Alameda County > Oakland > Silver jubilee memorial Convent of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Oakland, Cal., 1868-1893 > Part 10
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-A. Proctor. FANNIE CARROLL.
Convent of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Oakland, Cal.
Leines on a Feast Day
A time-stained volume, quaint and old, 1 And musingly I turn it o'er, Perchance those pages dark with mold, Strange stories tell of days of yore- Are gemmed with words and thoughts of gold.
Vain is the hope ; all interest lost, The gray leaves flutter to and fro ; But ah ! a perfume rare is tost, That scents those dismal pages so- A faded bloom with memories fraught.
So in the volume of the year, There hidden lies a fragrant rose ; Over the gloomy days, and drear, The sweetest of incense it throws- "A day of days " to us so dear.
Our cherished teacher's feast day fair, Rich with fond memories of the past, Of tender words, and loving care, Of golden hours too bright to last O vanished days, so sweet and rare!
ANNIE CAREY.
Couvent of the Holy Names, San Francisco, Cal.
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The Shell was not filled with Pearls until it was contented.
(i.e. ceaged from unreft) Persian
Look upon the sea at the dawn of a summer's day. The pale blue waves, tipped by the rosy hues of the morning light, are sing- ing their hymns of praise in tones of sweetest music. The golden beach is their altar, it is here they come to sing and pray, and then go back into the sea to come again and go once more, for, to and fro, has Heaven marked the pathway of the waves on the avenues of time. And when the sun has set, and the sable shadows have fallen, and myriads of stars are crowning the brow of night, behold those children of the deep, clad in dark blue garments and decked with the jewels that Heaven has lent them, and listen to their glorious chant. How sublime! how seemingly unearthly! can it be the echo's own refrain of the immortal Te Deum of Paradise?
O beautiful waves upon a summer seal ye are the image of sin- less hearts singing in grateful accents at the Feet of God the prelude of everlasting life.
But the sea is not always tranquil, for it is a mirror of all men's hearts, and these differ as the vicissitudes of light and shade.
Watch the birds with snowy wings flying westward over the waves into the evening sun. In the east hear the muffled sounds of the tempest's roar. Suddenly the sky grows dark and great winds come. Huge billows rise and dash angrily against the cliffs in cries of wildest agony. It is the fury of a storm. It is the picture of another storm upon the ocean of life, when the winds of passion arise. There are hearts which like the birds fly unto the Light
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when the threatening sounds are heard afar, but alas! there are others, impetuous as the waves, that strike against the rocks of despair, and fall like their foam into the sea.
Let us leave the surface of the deep and descend, where the tumult of winds and waves is all unheard, into that mysterious region where perpetual silence reigns, and where untold beauty lives unseen by human eye. There in some fair garden or in some jeweled cave lies a shell filled with pearls of rarest lustre. It is the book in which God has sweetly written the simile of a faithful heart's life and recompense. He breathed the parable into the ear of some Persian poet who wrote it thus in his book of meditations: "The shell was not filled with pearls until it was contented." It pictures the home of a tiny life whose vital spark is now extinguished. It tells its years of continuous labor and of patient endurance, gather- ing grains of sand and intruding fragments, perhaps of rock or of some other shell, which caused it pain, and how it ceased not from unrest, until of each it had formed a pearl of purest splendor.
O happy the hearts that on life's great ocean gather golden deeds, afflictions and sorrows! In a few short years when the work is accomplished, what joy when God shall open the shell and find it filled with pearls; these alone are the earthly treasures that can purchase immortality.
ELIZA OVIEDO.
Convent of the Holy Names, San Francisco, Cal.
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Farewell to April and Welcome to May
Farewell ! wayward, laughing April, month of smiles and tears. We had grown to love you, when you ceased to be; and did you not love us, too? Yes; for when May was ushered in in all the dreamy newness of life, tears of regret, I ween, at leaving us, still lingered, sparkling like so many diamonds on the flowers. But while we say, " Vale, dear April," we would thank you for the many joys and pleasures you brought us; and, although other months may bring us like happiness, like joys, like pleasures, still yours will ever smile with softer glow; around them ever shall circle a halo of wondrous beauty, studded with rarest gems-the halo, a sunny smile, the gems, sparkling tears. What crown more bright ! what gems, what jewels more precious ?
Will our hearts thus eulogize you, sweet May, when your course is run ? Oh ! yes; for what heart that loves our Blessed Mother, can fail to love her month ? What poet has not sung the praises of this month, and of her whose name it bears ? What a month of song, of pleasures and of smiles! What a joyous time for heart and soul! How happy, how light-hearted we feel as we wander through the meadows and fields of clover, or climb the hills and from each sunny slope cull the brightest, fairest flowers ! How our souls rejoice, when, in the sweet even-tide, we gather round her altars, and sing the hymns of praise and love to our Mother !
Charming May ! Each year we welcome her just as heartily, even though the rose color of our lives be blanched to snowy white- ness, and a shaft of marble records a grave in the cemetery of our souls. Sweet herald of approaching summer, we hail you ! We welcome you with your birds, your flowers, your soft winds. Your birds we shall teach to carol the praise of our Queen; your choicest
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flowers we shall lay at her feet; and your winds-sweet with much kissing of the roses, shall waft fragrance to her throne above.
Oh, how happy we shall be, if, when death's cold lips have touched ours, whether it be in the May of lives, or in sullen, dark November, we shall go straight to Mary's feet, there to sit and listen to her gentle voice, as she tells us how much she has ever loved us; how much she has longed to have her children near her. Oh, hap- piness untold-thus to be with Mary ! Oh, quick, the hour that will cut the moorings of our life-bark and set it adrift on the home- going tide.
NORA FITZGERALD.
Convent of the Holy Names, San Francisco, Cal. 1
0 hakespeare
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Many an age has been prolific of great minds and lofty geniuses, but the age of Elizabeth surpasses them all, not only in the number and variety of the master-minds of that period, but especially in this :- that it included within its charmed circle, the greatest genius of his time, and it may be of all time. For of all the stars in that bright galaxy which clustered round the throne of Elizabeth, Shakespeare shines resplendent and solitary.
Ages had come and gone, before Shakespeare was, and ages have passed since Shakespeare has been, yet, not one has produced a single spirit, so lofty in genius or so transcendent in. glory. Not one is there fit even to touch the hem of the peculiar robe, with which he has clothed himself in his immortal conceptions, and by
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which we, at all times recognize our own Shakespeare: namely : his power of depicting human life and human affairs and all their ac- companying cares, passions and fancies.
Some poets, as Milton and Dante have taken grand and awful themes for their songs. They ascend into the very heavens and describe the scenes thereof; they hold converse with both angels and demons. But there is a limit. Their genius exhausts itself, and when they would approach the earth, they stumble and totter as though they did not know their way amid such lowness.
Others "of the earth, earthly" have not the wings wherewith to soar to higher spheres, and nobler climes.' They find in the good- ness and beauty of earth, something of that greater beauty which attracts their brother spirits and which floating, like a seraph, twixt heaven and earth, whilst it eludes, still leads them on. For poesy though a captive here below has its true home above, and in the hearts where it makes its abode, it must ever create that longing for the higher beauty beyond. Ahl far beyond the conception of those "lesser lights," but which leaves them ever watching and waiting and striving to catch the "lost chords" of the heavenly alleluias, amid the lowness of earth.
With Shakespeare it was different, nothing was so high that he could not reach; nothing so low that he could not fathom, nothing so subtle that he could not grasp; nothing so grand that he could not comprehend; nothing so beautiful that he could not portray, and nothing so complex, that he could not divide and make clear and commingle again into one gorgeous whole, and drape and fashion it with the diverse fancies and creations of his fertile brain, until naught was left untried that could be done, and naught was left unsaid, that could be sung.
Nothing daunted, nothing repelled him. He handled spirits and mortals with the same vigorous grasp, and they danced or moped in mirth or melancholy, obedient to his powerful will, por- trayed with such consummate art as to have made the world look on in amazement and wonder for more than three hundred years.
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Hideous witches, wrapt in air, taunt and prophesy; spectral forms appear to affright, and instruct unto vengeance and death; heart-withering visions with their dire signs appear, to torment or predict, whilst fairies gambol and revel to their hearts' content in sunlit glade or moon-tipped grove.
But it is especially in depicting all that pertains to man and humanity that shows forth Shakespeare's greatest powers. He becomes as it were, each of his different characters in turn. He is at once the parricide, the jealous husband, the trustful woman, the conspirator, the spy, the fickle prince, the crafty statesman, the faithful friend, the noble lord, the mindful servant, the supercilious knave. They pass before our minds in ever lengthening procession ; and Shakespeare stands guard over all, for was it not his immortal pen which has called them all into being? Truly is he great in their greatness. Once known we associate with their vice or their virtue, the vices and virtues of their kind.
Wolsey and Macbeth are synonyms of ambition; Othello and Iago, of jealousy and deceit; Portia, of prudence, discretion, and gen- erous love; Bassanio and Antonia, of faithful, noble friendship; Hamlet, of indifference and indecision; Ophelia of despairing love. Shylock and his merciless greed of gold, Brutus and his ingratitude, Katherine and her untamed anger and Cordelia of dauntless truth and noble mind, these are names, which are blended so thoroughly with the aims and passions of the characters represented that it is impossible to separate the one from the other. They serve as land- marks, as it were, showing forth the forms of that greater beauty, to be found only as the whole grand vista unfolds before us, with all its diverse scenery, and all its glorious hues and images. Each step discloses new beauties, until, almost inebriated, we stand and survey the whole, and with all the fires of enthusiasm kindled within us, we must needs cry "enough !"
One is overwhelmed when contemplating that grand mental power, which reflects, as in a mirror, the manifold passions and emotions, the heartfelt joys and sorrows of the human heart, for all
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CONVENT OF THE HOLY NAMES, ST. JOSEPH'S PARISH, S. F. CHAPEL, CONVENT OF THE HOLY NAMES
ST. ROSE'S SCHOOL, S. F. CHILDREN OF MARY'S SODALITY HALL, CONVENT OF THE HOLY NAMES
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time is enshrined in these immortal plays, which have served to lift their creator to the very skies, above all other men and leave him there in solitary, unique, delightful grandeur.
KATE L. O'NEILL.
Convent of the Holy Names, San Francisco, Cal.
armelo
The quaint old town of Monterey contains many objects of interest for the student of the past. There, on the golden shores of the Pacific, are ruins that speak eloquently of devoted zeal and charity-relics of a departed race-among them, the old struc- ture known as Carmel Mission. Around each crumbling wall cling memories of the days when the good Padres struggled and toiled in enduring patience, conquering with the cross, long before General Fremont raised the American flag on the heights of Monterey.
A pleasant, yet mournful feeling is aroused when gazing upon a ruin; lessons on the mutability of earthly things, the littleness of man, come to us as we observe that every effort to make himself immortal only mocks him, telling forcibly of his passing existence.
When we gaze on the Missions, thoughts of the great, the good, the noble awaken within us, and when we see these relics of love and tireless zeal shattered, our admiration is more deeply excited.
The Missions of California stand in humble silence as monu- ments of the devotedness of the beloved Padres. They are found along the coast from San Diego's shore to San Rafael's forest; their fallen walls and crumbling towers speaking pathetically of days that are no more.
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Carmel Mission was erected in 1770 by Junipero Serra; it is situated in the fertile Carmel Valley, a short distance from the bay of the same name, and about five miles from the historic town of Monterey. The Mission is built of sandstone and concrete; the roof was originally made of tiles, but is now replaced by one of shingles. The structure was raised by the Indians under the guid- ance of the Fathers, and shows signs of skilled workmanship com- bined with patient toil. Before reaching the Mission one passes through grainfields and orchards put under cultivation by the Padres, thus showing that they did not neglect to till the land in their efforts to convert the heathen.
The ruins of adobe buildings once occupied by the Indians, are to the front of the church. The church itself faces the northeast, and on approaching, one sees the arched facade on either side of which rise towers, the larger one surmounted by a dome. In this campanile hung the silver-tongued bells of the Mission, which for years pealed so sweetly, proclaiming peace and good will to the Indian. Above the entrance is a star-shaped window; in the belfry are three windows, two facing the north, one the east.
For many years the building was crumbling rapidly to decay, and relic hunters took away tiles, portions of woodwork, in fact, anything they could secure. Father Cassanova, Pastor of Monterey, was grieved to think Padre Serra's work was being so despoiled; for years he had his heart set on preserving the last resting place of this venerable priest and his co-laborers. Thanks to his zeal, it is now partially restored to its former condition.
Once inside the church a deep reverence fills the visitor; we are carried back to the past; the church seems filled with its swarthy worshippers, and we almost hear the choir chanting its weird vesper hymn. There is the same pulpit from which Father Serra preached to his flock; some of the stained glass windows, representing Christ and the Blessed Virgin, also remain; the wooden altar is now re- placed by one of marble; near by is a small slab with the inscrip- tion: "Fundata A. D. 1770 ; Restorata 1884." Sleeping near the
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altar with his fellow laborers lies Junipero Serra. Resting there is he who in life guided his children so well, and in death still seems to watch over his faithful Indians, who sleep in a neighboring cemetery.
The Indians have a beautiful legend which tells how on Christ- mas of every year Padre Serra rises from his tomb and celebrates midnight mass.
The only ornaments left in the church are an old plaster statue of the Blessed Virgin, about.a foot in height, a few old paintings of our Lord and the saints. To the left of the church is the baptistry, which contained the baptismal font, now restored. On the walls of the baptistry was a prayer once recited by the Indians, but it has been so defaced by relic hunters that its meaning can scarcely be ascertained. Some kind lady has had the words re-written and framed. Among the other relics are the records of the church in Serra's own handwriting; a rich and rare old Bible bearing the date 1589, which was used by the Padres; Serra's confessional, a splen- didly carved piece of work; a painting of St. Rose of Lima, and other paintings, are still in a good state of preservation, and are to be seen in San Carlos' Church in the town of Monterey. They were taken there before Carmel was restored, as it was not deemed safe to leave anything of value within its tottering walls.
Thus are scattered the mementos of the happy days that are gone forever, but none can touch the wooded hills, no human finger limit the boundless sea. As in the days of the " black-robes," the " mur- muring pines" still sing responsive to the dirge of the ocean-a re- quiem chant they ever, while the slumbering land awaits a new resurrection to the busy scenes of yore.
NELLIE FEEHAN.
Convent of the Holy Names, San Francisco, Cal.
School-Day Memories
A well-known author has written ; "to call up our old days shall be a solemn pleasure yet," and the words can hardly be more fitly applied than to looking backward on our school life, overflowing as it is with tender memories and useful lessons ; lessons that were learned for Time, and lessons bearing fruit for Eternity.
Years have gone by, and the mist of time has gathered between the present and the past, but even as the last rays of the setting sun fall athwart our path, and seem all the brighter for the dim even- ing light, and before the twilight shadows creep about us, so the rec- ollections of our school-days come to us now with a more tender and grateful affection, when we have borne for awhile the burden and heat of the day, in our life in the world ; the life that looked bright and fair when we knew it but in our dreams, and the reality of which has been a stern awakening to many.
What changes have taken place in these few years! How many breaks in the little circle to which we look back, and call fondly " Our Class" or " the girls in our room."
The Angel of Death has entered and breathed on the fairest flowers. The Angels of Love and of Prayer have whispered to others calling them to a nobler and a higher life. And the Angel of Duty stands by the rest, pointing with unerring finger to the path that ends in peace ; now leading us gaily onward in the joyous freedom of children doing their Father's will, now gently chiding when our footsteps are too hasty or too slow, and ever and anon, pausing before us and with sterner mien, demanding some hardly wrought sacrifice.
And in the highest Heaven of the favored few, in the seclusion of the Cloister, as well as in the walks and avenues of our daily life, the Convent lessons bear their fruit. For some, a glorious
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reward : for others, the peace of lives " hidden with Christ in God;" and for us, who will say that in the hourly struggle with the world without us, and the world within, the lessons of our earlier years do not give strength to our weak hearts, inspire us with higher motives and nobler aspirations, and so lead us ever onward and upward.
Tenderly we look backward, and beg a blessing on the generous souls who have left all at the voice of Heaven, and devote their lives to enlightening the minds, and guiding the hearts of children.
Softly we breathe a prayer for those who have gone before, and bow our heads in humble submission to the Providence of God.
And for ourselves we plead, oh, so fervently! for grace to be faithful to the teaching of by-gone days, that the tiny seeds sown long ago, growing and flourishing with time, may at length put forth flowers that will bloom in the Divine Garden, and exhale forever the perfume of virtues taught us in our days of innocence and childhood faith.
LAURA J. BRENHAM.
Convent of the Holy Names, San Francisco, Cal.
Within a Soul
Man has an unquenchable thirst for the unknown. Since Eve listened to the voice of the Tempter-' ye shall be like Gods'-the curiosity which prompted her to know what she should have ignored, descended as a legacy to the human race.
The Unknown-what a promise for the cravings of the mind, anxious to hoard up new stores of knowledge, and what obstacles will arrest man on his unexplored pathway? Is it appalling dan-
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ger? Is it heat or cold, misery or famine, disease or death that cause him to tarry in his eager pursuit? See him searching into the bowels of the earth, turning up the dust of ages, ascending the current of Time, clasping hands as it were with his prehistoric brethren-deciphering barbaric symbols until the Past almost ceases to be. A quarter of a century ago vast unexplored areas covered our maps-these hidden and almost inaccessible regions have echoed and re-echoed the civilized voice, and the veil is rent, behind which was sequestered the great Unknown. From Polar regions to Africa's burning sands and Antarctic snows, man has left his trace, and ofttimes his bleaching bones tell us, both of his struggles and his failures in his persistent research. Into the realms of space Science has led him until the orbs above have been brought into close proximity with the ever-searching mind of man, and there seems little left to surmise. This active, seething, craving spirit has anticipated ages ahead, and to-day we find ourselves face to face with such a state of progress that the mental stature of the 19th Century will be comparatively lilliputian to the enlightened races of the future.
Is there any hidden recess left which man's restless mind has not penetrated? any stronghold which he has not taken by storm? Ah, yes! there is a world around us, which the keenest eye fails to penetrate-a realm so subtle, so spiritual, so guarded from all encroachments, save the all-seeing eye of God, that we hardly divine its existence.
We live with bodies, see the actions of men, listen to their speech, but can we safely affirm that all these manifestations are but so many reflections of the spirit within?
There are natures so constituted, that through their transparency are revealed the workings of the soul. Yet, even these have their own inner sanctuary in which God walks alone, as with our first parents before the fall.
Others are clogged by the body, as by an iceberg ; the fire within burns fiercely, but like the pent-up volcano, finds no issue. The
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reticent man, shut up within himself, bows under the humiliating verdict of being soulless, when the very fact of his having so much soul, makes him the most unfortunate of beings.
The wary and deceitful plays his part so skillfully that no sus- picion rests upon his base motives, so secure is he behind the barrier of the senses-and what marvel at this security? since it has been his life-long study to make this barrier impenetrable to the eye of his fellow-beings. 1
Indeed, so subtle are the workings of the spirit within, that the most honest and upright are often at a loss to account for the intentions which underlie their seemingly best deeds.
Some there are, again, who abhor publicity, and make to them- selves a dwelling apart ; so isolated are their lives, that only a restricted circle of friends are admitted to their intimacy, and even these are excluded from the inner chamber, into which no human eye is permitted to intrude.
" God breathed into man the breath of life"-this is His own Image. No human effort can reproduce it, no power annihilate it, no eye search into the depths thereof, save the Creator Himself.
True, Science as with all unknown truths, gives principles, by which the faculties of this spiritual part of our being are analyzed; . but how much is left unexplored ! Let us take an individual soul- 'tis a world by itself, in which the passions, sensibilities and emotions are playing the most wondrous drama that was ever enacted. It is also a battlefield, upon which the man of flesh and the man of spirit are contending for the mastery. Each has its champions, and little do we know of the fierce contest, otherwise we would be less hasty in bestowing blame, more merciful and forgiving-yea, little do we know of the onslaught of the foe-of the long and weary resistance, of the bitterness of defeat. The battlefield is a bloodless one, but forth from the arena, come body and soul, gray with the struggle.
Turning from so painful a prospect, let us fix our eyes upon a more consoling one. We would see the soul, with God-like aspira-
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tions, cherishing the good, the beautiful and the true-victorious over the ignoble passions, growing in wisdom and godliness. Ah! this is a temple in which God finds His delight ! The Saints and the Just have told us their experience, in these regions away from the haunts of worldiness and sin ; but with eyes of flesh, we are blind to such spiritual beauties, and it will be given to us only in the glories of the Resurrection, to conceive the greatness of this immortal spirit, and its capabilities of assimilating itself with the Almighty Being that brought it into existence. The Spouse in the Canticle calls the soul of His beloved, a sealed garden, in which bloom myrrh, spikenard and all precious ointments. All the glory, the beauty, and the fragrance of the world of flowers can give us no idea of this garden of the Spouse ; of its loveliness, its variety, its inebriating fragrance. The world catches but faint glimpses of what the saints have told of themselves. The Spouse has His hidden recesses, which are veiled to mortal eyes, His own secrets with His beloved. For the beauty of the daughter of Sion is all interior, saith the inspired volume. Therefore, we know little of souls, and of the Holy Spirit's operations therein.
Beginning at the lowest degree of human life, and ascending the scale gradually, we marvel at the workings of Divine Grace- in the babe merging from the baptismal waters ; in the predestined child, who has escaped all contaminating influence, and the purity of whose soul makes it less a thing of earth than of Heaven ; in youth, and at a maturer period, as well as down the slope of years, we see the faithful observer of God's law on his silent round of duty garnering in a golden harvest, of which human statistics take no account, until this grand tableau culminates in the hoary-headed sire, standing in the glow of the Eternal Summits, yearning daily for the final merging of his soul into the bosom of that Being Who created him. Ah! if we lived in this world of souls, how much more beauty we would discover in our surroundings, how much more hallowed the ground upon which we tread!
Touching upon these souls as it were at every turning point,
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should it not strike awe into our hearts, knowing all the wonders that God is working therein? Physical defects which give birth to petty dislikes and repugnances, would disappear in the overwhelming moral greatness of these godlike spirits-for, says a noted writer, "It is the soul shining through the face that makes one beautiful."
What a panorama will be unveiled to our gaze on the great day of the revelation of souls ! and, like the disciples 'mid the unexpected glories of Thabor, we will then have no aspirations beyond that Tabernacle where God and His dearly bought souls have met, in an everlasting embrace of love and peace.
Therefore let us love souls, live with souls, study souls; it will make our lives better, purer, holier, "until this corruption puts on incorruption, and this mortal puts on immortality."
A LOVER OF SOULS.
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Then and Now **
The years have passed, and flown apace, As summer birds do fly,
That cast their shadows as they flit O'er earth and field and sky.
Those shadows which must turn to gold When veined by heaven's rays, If good and noble deeds are wrought Within the fleeting days.
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Now, Mem'ry lift on high thy rod As Moses did of old ; And bid the waves of Time roll back And show thy strand, unmarked, unscrolled.
Canadian shores gleam fair and bright, And Nature smiles on all, When from the far-off western world, Sounds forth a bugle call.
A call to duty! Rise and come, Ye daughters of the King! He calls to ye, and shall ye wait Or from ye nobly fling
All thoughts of self, of home and friends, Who only know His Will? Ah! five and twenty years have passed. And yet they serve Him still!
Gaily as bride unto the feast Where love doth shine on all, Go forth that band from Canada's shores, To hearken to the call.
Courage and strength and faith had they, Those chosen of the Lord. And conquerors they stand to-day, Who preached not by the sword.
But by the kind and loving care They gave to all who came, For knowledge, consolation, love, And asked in Jesus' Name.
For by that Name, before whose might Earth, heaven and hell must fall, And by sweet Mary's tender Name, Have they accomplished all.
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And that small band, led on by one Well formed by grace to guide, Has grown and flourished day by day, Its works show far and wide.
A structure grand on high is reared, And lifts to heaven its dome, As if to show the careless eye, That there above is Home.
Religion, Science, Art here meet, And flourish 'neath the care, Of those who many years ago, First sowed the seedlings there.
And now the bearded grain is ripe, And she who sowed so true, Has come to gather in the sheaves, And take in love her due.
Then side by side, and heart to heart, We welcome her in glee, Our souls glad hallelujahs sing In love's mute minstrelsy.
And while we send on high our voice, On high too speeds the pray'r, That God our Mother's heart will fill, With sweetest love fore'er.
And he whose voice sent forth the call Which reached the distant land, Has Father, Brother, friend long been, To his devoted band.
Ah! come, sweet Peace, and crown his days, Who all his days has spent, In "strivings oft, in perils deep;" And hope and courage lent,
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To all who claimed a Father's care ; And none e'er asked for aught, But it was given in joy. Ah! come Sweet Peace-the crown is sought.
And our own Mother, whom God has given Sweet womanhood's true grace, Whose mother soul doth bend to all, Who well doth fill her place,
In truest worth, in guidings wise, Whose rule is love's own sway ; Ah! long may she be ours to love Long may she point the way
To higher things, and nobler far, Than this world e'er controls ; So may our lives meet here through God, In God, above, our souls.
Now, Time, who in thy flowing tide, Dost bear all onward still, Let not the Future mar the Past, But fairer, brighter still,
Ah! may the round of Duty, wrought In faith and hope and love, A guerdon fair on earth e'er be A fadeless crown above.
KATE L. O'NEILL.
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