Bechtel, John Hendricks

Sunday-School Selections; Comprising a Wide Range of Readings and Recitations Adapted to Church and Sunday-School Entertainments and to All Gatherings

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 Excerpt: ...lived our life in vain. To the giver shall be given--If thou wouldst walk in light Make other spirits bright; Who, seeking for himself alone, ever entered heaven? In blessing we are blest: In labor find our rest. If we bend not to the world's work, heart, and hand, and brain, We have lived our life in vain. Selfishness is utter loss; Life's most perfect joy and good--Ah how few have understood --Only One hath proved it fully, and He died upon tha cross, Taking on Himself the curse So to bless a universe. Ji we follow not His footsteps through the pathway straight and plain, We have lived our life in vain. MY MOTHER. SHE stands upon the border land, Where heaven and earth unite; Her soul projects itself beyond The avenues of sight. And dwelling in the realms that ne'er Are reached by mortal ken, She seems already crowned a saint At three-score years and ten. Her motherhood is written o'er Her face in fairest lines; Her tender heart asserts itself By most familiar signs. By patient steps, through thorny way-, Through sorrow and through strife, She reached the Pisgah-height of time. The boundary of life. Far down the valley of the past, She sees where fond hopes bloomed. And marks the many monuments Wherein they lie eniombed. But o'er the graves the grass has grown, And Love its balm has given. Since every step the wanderer took, But led her nearer Heaven. Her children fill life's vacancies; She lives for them alone; She has no selfish thoughts or aims, No sorrows of her own. O golden chain, that binds so close These human hearts, when riven, The shortened links but draw us up To happiness and Heaven I Three-score and ten O failing feet That spurn the dust of time, How bright the radiance that illumes The pathway that ye climb How dark the shadow that ...