And so the Word had breath, and wrought
    With human hands the creed of creeds
    In loveliness of perfect deeds,
  More strong than all poetic thought.
In Memoriam, XXXVI.  A. TENNYSON. 
  Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes
  Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
  The bird of dawning singeth all night long: 
  And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
  The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
  No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
  So hallowed and so gracious is the time,
Hamlet, Act i.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

                      In those holy fields,
  Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
  Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed,
  For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
Henry IV., Pt.  I. Act i.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

Lovely was the death
Of Him whose life was Love!  Holy with power,
He on the thought-benighted Skeptic beamed
Manifest Godhead.
Religious Musings.  S.T.  COLERIDGE.

                           But chiefly Thou
  Whom soft-eyed Pity once led down from Heaven
  To bleed for man, to teach him how to live,
  And, oh! still harder lesson! how to die.
Death.  B. PORTEUS.

One there is above all others,
Well deserves the name of Friend! 
His is love beyond a brother’s,
Costly, free, and knows no end: 
They who once his kindness prove,
Find it everlasting love!
A Friend that Sticketh Closer than a Brother.  J. NEWTON.

  ’Tis done, the great transaction’s done;
    I am my Lord’s, and he is mine;
  He drew me, and I followed on,
    Charmed to confess the voice divine.

  Now rest, my long-divided heart! 
    Fixed on this blissful centre, rest;
  Oh, who with earth would grudge to part,
    When called with angels to be blest?
Happy Day.  P. DODDRIDGE.

  Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord,
  What may thy service be?—­
  Nor name, nor town, nor ritual word,
  But simply following thee.

  We bring no ghastly holocaust,
    We pile no graven stone;
  He serves thee best who loveth most
    His brothers and thy own.
Our Master.  J.G.  WHITTIER.

JEWEL.

  These gems have life in them:  their colors speak,
  Say what words fail of.
The Spanish Gypsy.  GEORGE ELIOT.

  If that a pearl may in a toad’s head dwell,
  And may be found too in an oyster shell.
Apology for his Book.  J. BUNYAN.

  Some asked how pearls did grow, and where,
    Then spoke I to my girle,
  To part her lips, and showed them there
    The quarelets of pearl.
The Rock of Rubies and the Quarrie of Pearl.  R. HERRICK.

  The lively Diamond drinks thy purest rays,
  Collected light, compact.
The Seasons:  Summer.  J. THOMSON.