TEACHING THE SCRIPTURES.
 
                Child of the thoughtful brow,
        The speaking eye and the confiding look!
                List to those teachings now,
        And make thy guiding star that Blessed Book.
 
                If bright thy course of life,
        'Twill shed around thy path a holier ray;
                If dark with storms and strife,
        'Twill beam like sunlight on thy dreary way.
 
                Come while around thee clings
        The joyousness and innocence of birth;
                Come, ere thy spirit's wings
        Are wet with tears and stained with hues of earth.
 
                Like tendrils of the vine,
        Those deep affections with thy heart inwove,
                Must round some prop entwine;
        They ask some object for their wealth of love.
 
                And if that object be
        Earth-born and mortal, they will languish still:
                There is a vacancy
        In woman's heart, that God alone can fill.