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THE INFANT CHRIST WITH FLOWERS.


"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.
"But the word of the Lord endureth forever."1 Peter I. 24, 25.


Sweet Lord, as in those infant hands
    Are heaped up early flowers,
Gathered with toil, and wreathed with care,
    The wealth of summer hours.

So gather thou, amid our thoughts,
    The purest and the best;
The few that, in our busy world,
    Are heavenward addrest.

So forming in the human soul
    Thine own immortal wreath,
Of sacred hopes, nurst in thy faith,
    To blossom after death.