Evening Song

REPLY TO ROBERTS' VIEW OF DEITY. 867

Being, and that known only to the mind:" Other pagans bore similar testimony concerning the unity of God. In his letter to the Emperor Trajan, (A. D. 98-117) Pliny, governor of Pontus, said among other things: "They [the Christians] assemble on cer- tain days before sunrise to sing hymns of praise to Christ, their God.

• • • They submit to torture and death rather than invoke

  the gods." And Celsus, the forerunner of our modern infidels, thus sland-

ered the early Christians: "Confessing that these are worthy of their God, they desire to convert none but fools, and vulgar and stupid and slavish women and boys." One more. Csecilius wrote: "What monstrous notions

• • • they [the Christians] fabricate that that God of theirs,,

  whom they can neither show nor see, should be inquiring diligently into the characters, the acts, nay the words and secret thoughts of all men! * * * Most of you are in want, cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it."

EVENING SONG.

When the sun sinks in the west behind the golden clouds Which change, as twilight deepens, and dress in purple shrouds; 'Tis then the earth is quiet, all nature seems to rest;

Zephyrs gently stir the leaves from mead to hill-tops' crest

'Tis then the breath of evening comes forth in solemn lay;

It is the herald of the night, a requiem of the day;

The trees bow in submission; all life, from sky to sod, Is wrapt in twilight hour, in sweetest praise to God. — Mathonihah Thomas.