{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4272/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4272","id":"gutenberg_4272","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4272","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian poetry, English -- 19th century","Church year -- Poetry","Hymns, English"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1887 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n                          [Picture: Book cover]\n\n                        CASSELL\u2019S NATIONAL LIBRARY.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\n                                   THE\n                              CHRISTIAN YEAR\n\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    BY\n                           THE REV. JOHN KEBLE.\n\n                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]\n\n                       CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:\n\n                _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.\n\n                                  1887.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nJOHN KEBLE, two years older than his friend Dr. Arnold of Rugby, three\nyears older than Thomas Carlyle, and nine years older than John Henry\nNewman, was born in 1792, at Fairford in Gloucestershire.  He was born in\nhis father\u2019s parsonage, and educated at home by his father till he went\nto college.  His father then entered him at his own college at Oxford,\nCorpus Christi.  Thoroughly trained, Keble obtained high reputation at\nhis University for character and scholarship, and became a Fellow of\nOriel.  After some years he gave up work in the University, though he\ncould not divest himself of a large influence there for good, returned\nhome to his old father, who required help in his ministry, and undertook\nfor his the duty of two little curacies.  The father lived on to the age\nof ninety.  John Keble\u2019s love for God and his devotion to the Church had\noften been expressed in verse.  On days which the Church specially\ncelebrated, he had from time to time written short poems to utter from\nthe heart his own devout sense of their spiritual use and meaning.  As\nthe number of these poems increased, the desire rose to follow in like\nmanner the while course of the Christian Year as it was marked for the\npeople by the sequence of church services, which had been arranged to\nbring in due order before the minds of Christian worshippers all the\nfoundations of their faith, and all the elements of a religious life.  A\nbook of poems, breathing faith and worship at all points, and in all\nattitudes of heavenward contemplation, within the circle of the Christian\nYear, would, he hoped, restore in many minds to many a benumbed form life\nand energy.\n\nIn 1825, while the poems of the Christian Year were gradually being\nshaped into a single work, a brother became able to relieve John Keble in\nthat pious care for which his father had drawn him away from a great\nUniversity career, and he then went to a curacy at Hursley, four or five\nmiles from Winchester.\n\nIn 1827\u2014when its author\u2019s age was thirty-five\u2014\u201cThe Christian Year\u201d was\npublished.  Like George Herbert, whose equal he was in piety though not\nin power, Keble was joined to the Church in fullest sympathy with all its\nordinances, and desired to quicken worship by putting into each part of\nthe ritual a life that might pass into and raise the life of man.  The\nspirit of true religion, with a power beyond that of any earthly feuds\nand controversies, binds together those in whom it really lives.  Setting\naside all smaller questions of the relative value of different earthly\nmeans to the attainment of a life hidden with Christ in God, Christians\nof all forms who are one in spirit have found help from \u201cJohn Keble\u2019s\nChristian Year,\u201d and think of its guileless author with kindly affection.\nWithin five-and-twenty years of its publication, a hundred thousand\ncopies had been sold.  The book is still diffused so widely, in editions\nof all forms, that it may yet go on, until the circle of the years shall\nbe no more, living and making live.\n\nFour years after \u201cThe Christian Year\u201d appeared, Keble was appointed (in\n1831) to the usual five years\u2019 tenure of the Poetry Professorship at\nOxford.  Two years after he had been appointed Poetry Professor, he\npreached the Assize Sermon, and took for his theme \u201cNational Apostasy.\u201d\nJohn Henry Newman, who had obtained his Fellowship at Oriel some years\nbefore the publication of \u201cThe Christian Year,\u201d and was twenty-six years\nold when it appeared, received from it a strong impulse towards the\nendeavour to revive the spirit of the Church by restoring life and soul\nto all her ordinances, and even to the minutest detail of her ritual.\nThe deep respect felt for the author of \u201cThe Christian Year\u201d gave power\nto the sermon of 1833 upon National Apostasy, and made it the\nstarting-point of the Oxford movement known as Tractarian, from the issue\nof tracts through which its promoters sought to stir life in the clergy\nand the people; known also as Puseyite because it received help at the\nend of the year 1833 from Dr. Pusey, who was of like age with J. H.\nNewman, and then Regius Professor of Hebrew.  There was a danger, which\nsome then foresaw, in the nature of this endeavour to put life into the\nChurch; but we all now recognise the purity of Christian zeal that\nprompted the attempt to make dead forms of ceremonial glow again with\nspiritual fire, and serve as aids to the recovery of light and warmth in\nour devotions.\n\nIt was in 1833 that Keble, by one earnest sermon, with a pure life at the\nback of it, and this book that had prepared the way, gave the direct\nimpulse to an Oxford movement for the reformation of the Church.  The\nmovement then began.  But Keble went back to his curacy at Hursley.  Two\nyears afterwards the curate became vicar, and then Keble married.  His\nafter-life continued innocent and happy.  He and his wife died within two\nmonths of each other, in the came year, 1866.  He had taken part with his\nfriends at Oxford by writing five of their Tracts, publishing a few\nsermons that laboured towards the same end, and editing a \u201cLibrary of the\nFathers.\u201d  In 1847 he produced another volume of poems, \u201cLyra\nInnocentium,\u201d which associated doctrines of the Church with the lives of\nchildren, whom he loved, though his own marriage was childless.\n\nThe power of Keble\u2019s verse lies in its truth.  A faithful and pure\nnature, strong in home affections, full of love and reverence for all\nthat is of heaven in our earthly lot, strives for the full consecration\nof man\u2019s life with love and faith.  There is no rare gift of genius.\nKeble is not in subtlety of thought or of expression another George\nHerbert, or another Henry Vaughan.  But his voice is not the less in\nunison with theirs, for every note is true, and wins us by its purity.\nHis also are melodies of the everlasting chime.\n\n          \u201cAnd be ye sure that Love can bless\n          E\u2019en in this crowded loneliness,\n    Where ever moving myriads seem to say,\n    Go\u2014thou art nought to us, nor we to thee\u2014away!\u201d\n\n    \u201cThere are in this loud stunning tide\n       Of human care and crime,\n    With whom the melodies abide\n       Of the everlasting chime;\n    Who carry music in their heart\n       Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,\n    Plying their daily task with busier feet,\n       Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.\u201d\n\nWith a peal, then, of such music let us ring in the New Year for our\nLibrary; and for our lives.\n\n_January_ 1, 1887.\n\n                                                                     H. M.\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION.\n\n\n   WHEN in my silent solitary walk,\n      I sought a strain not all unworthy Thee,\n   My heart, still ringing with wild worldly talk,\n      Gave forth no note of holier minstrelsy.\n\n   Prayer is the secret, to myself I said,\n      Strong supplication must call down the charm,\n   And thus with untuned heart I feebly prayed,\n      Knocking at Heaven\u2019s gate with earth-palsied arm.\n\n   Fountain of Harmony!  Thou Spirit blest,\n      By whom the troubled waves of earthly sound\n   Are gathered into order, such as best\n      Some high-souled bard in his enchanted round\n\n   May compass, Power divine!  Oh, spread Thy wing,\n      Thy dovelike wing that makes confusion fly,\n   Over my dark, void spirit, summoning\n      New worlds of music, strains that may not die.\n\n   Oh, happiest who before thine altar wait,\n      With pure hands ever holding up on high\n   The guiding Star of all who seek Thy gate,\n      The undying lamp of heavenly Poesy.\n\n   Too weak, too wavering, for such holy task\n      Is my frail arm, O Lord; but I would fain\n   Track to its source the brightness, I would bask\n      In the clear ray that makes Thy pathway plain.\n\n   I dare not hope with David\u2019s harp to chase\n      The evil spirit from the troubled breast;\n   Enough for me if I can find such grace\n      To listen to the strain, and be at rest.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN YEAR.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMorning.\n\n\n    His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning.\n\n                                                    _Lament_. iii. 22, 23.\n\n   HUES of the rich unfolding morn,\n   That, ere the glorious sun be born,\n   By some soft touch invisible\n   Around his path are taught to swell;\u2014\n\n   Thou rustling breeze so fresh and gay,\n   That dancest forth at opening day,\n   And brushing by with joyous wing,\n   Wakenest each little leaf to sing;\u2014\n\n   Ye fragrant clouds of dewy steam,\n   By which deep grove and tangled stream\n   Pay, for soft rains in season given,\n   Their tribute to the genial heaven;\u2014\n\n   Why waste your treasures of delight\n   Upon our thankless, joyless sight;\n   Who day by day to sin awake,\n   Seldom of Heaven and you partake?\n\n   Oh, timely happy, timely wise,\n   Hearts that with rising morn arise!\n   Eyes that the beam celestial view,\n   Which evermore makes all things new!\n\n   New every morning is the love\n   Our wakening and uprising prove;\n   Through sleep and darkness safely brought,\n   Restored to life, and power, and thought.\n\n   New mercies, each returning day,\n   Hover around us while we pray;\n   New perils past, new sins forgiven,\n   New thoughts of God, new hopes of Heaven.\n\n   If on our daily course our mind\n   Be set to hallow all we find,\n   New treasures still, of countless price,\n   God will provide for sacrifice.\n\n   Old friends, old scenes will lovelier be,\n   As more of Heaven in each we see:\n   Some softening gleam of love and prayer\n   Shall dawn on every cross and care.\n\n   As for some dear familiar strain\n   Untired we ask, and ask again,\n   Ever, in its melodious store,\n   Finding a spell unheard before;\n\n   Such is the bliss of souls serene,\n   When they have sworn, and stedfast mean,\n   Counting the cost, in all t\u2019 espy\n   Their God, in all themselves deny.\n\n   Oh, could we learn that sacrifice,\n   What lights would all around us rise!\n   How would our hearts with wisdom talk\n   Along Life\u2019s dullest, dreariest walk!\n\n   We need not bid, for cloistered cell,\n   Our neighbour and our work farewell,\n   Nor strive to wind ourselves too high\n   For sinful man beneath the sky:\n\n   The trivial round, the common task,\n   Would furnish all we ought to ask;\n   Room to deny ourselves; a road\n   To bring us daily nearer God.\n\n   Seek we no more; content with these,\n   Let present Rapture, Comfort, Ease,\n   As Heaven shall bid them, come and go:\u2014\n   The secret this of Rest below.\n\n   Only, O Lord, in Thy dear love\n   Fit us for perfect Rest above;\n   And help us, this and every day,\n   To live more nearly as we pray.\n\n\n\nEvening.\n\n\n    Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far\n    spent.\u2014_St. Luke_ xxiv. 29.\n\n   \u2019TIS gone, that bright and orb\u00e8d blaze,\n   Fast fading from our wistful gaze;\n   You mantling cloud has hid from sight\n   The last faint pulse of quivering light.\n\n   In darkness and in weariness\n   The traveller on his way must press,\n   No gleam to watch on tree or tower,\n   Whiling away the lonesome hour.\n\n   Sun of my soul!  Thou Saviour dear,\n   It is not night if Thou be near:\n   Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise\n   To hide Thee from Thy servant\u2019s eyes!\n\n   When round Thy wondrous works below\n   My searching rapturous glance I throw,\n   Tracing out Wisdom, Power and Love,\n   In earth or sky, in stream or grove;\u2014\n\n   Or by the light Thy words disclose\n   Watch Time\u2019s full river as it flows,\n   Scanning Thy gracious Providence,\n   Where not too deep for mortal sense:\u2014\n\n   When with dear friends sweet talk I hold,\n   And all the flowers of life unfold;\n   Let not my heart within me burn,\n   Except in all I Thee discern.\n\n   When the soft dews of kindly sleep\n   My wearied eyelids gently steep,\n   Be my last thought, how sweet to rest\n   For ever on my Saviour\u2019s breast.\n\n   Abide with me from morn till eve,\n   For without Thee I cannot live:\n   Abide with me when night is nigh,\n   For without Thee I dare not die.\n\n   Thou Framer of the light and dark,\n   Steer through the tempest Thine own ark:\n   Amid the howling wintry sea\n   We are in port if we have Thee.\n\n   The Rulers of this Christian land,\n   \u2019Twixt Thee and us ordained to stand,\u2014\n   Guide Thou their course, O Lord, aright,\n   Let all do all as in Thy sight.\n\n   Oh! by Thine own sad burthen, borne\n   So meekly up the hill of scorn,\n   Teach Thou Thy Priests their daily cross\n   To bear as Thine, nor count it loss!\n\n   If some poor wandering child of Thine\n   Have spurned to-day the voice divine,\n   Now, Lord, the gracious work begin;\n   Let him no more lie down in sin.\n\n   Watch by the sick: enrich the poor\n   With blessings from Thy boundless store:\n   Be every mourner\u2019s sleep to-night,\n   Like infants\u2019 slumbers, pure and light.\n\n   Come near and bless us when we wake,\n   Ere through the world our way we take;\n   Till in the ocean of Thy love\n   We lose ourselves, in Heaven above.\n\n\n\nAdvent Sunday.\n\n\n    Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation\n    nearer than when we believed.\u2014_Romans_ xiii 11.\n\n   AWAKE\u2014again the Gospel-trump is blown\u2014\n   From year to year it swells with louder tone,\n      From year to year the signs of wrath\n      Are gathering round the Judge\u2019s path,\n   Strange words fulfilled, and mighty works achieved,\n   And truth in all the world both hated and believed.\n\n   Awake! why linger in the gorgeous town,\n   Sworn liegemen of the Cross and thorny crown?\n      Up from your beds of sloth for shame,\n      Speed to the eastern mount like flame,\n   Nor wonder, should ye find your King in tears,\n   E\u2019en with the loud Hosanna ringing in His ears.\n\n   Alas! no need to rouse them: long ago\n   They are gone forth to swell Messiah\u2019s show:\n      With glittering robes and garlands sweet\n      They strew the ground beneath His feet:\n   All but your hearts are there\u2014O doomed to prove\n   The arrows winged in Heaven for Faith that will not love!\n\n   Meanwhile He passes through th\u2019 adoring crowd,\n   Calm as the march of some majestic cloud,\n      That o\u2019er wild scenes of ocean-war\n      Holds its still course in Heaven afar:\n   E\u2019en so, heart-searching Lord, as years roll on,\n   Thou keepest silent watch from Thy triumphal throne:\n\n   E\u2019en so, the world is thronging round to gaze\n   On the dread vision of the latter days,\n      Constrained to own Thee, but in heart\n      Prepared to take Barabbas\u2019 part:\n   \u201cHosanna\u201d now, to-morrow \u201cCrucify,\u201d\n   The changeful burden still of their rude lawless cry.\n\n   Yet in that throng of selfish hearts untrue\n   Thy sad eye rests upon Thy faithful few,\n      Children and childlike souls are there,\n      Blind Bartimeus\u2019 humble prayer,\n   And Lazarus wakened from his four days\u2019 sleep,\n   Enduring life again, that Passover to keep.\n\n   And fast beside the olive-bordered way\n   Stands the blessed home where Jesus deigned to stay,\n      The peaceful home, to Zeal sincere\n      And heavenly Contemplation dear,\n   Where Martha loved to wait with reverence meet,\n   And wiser Mary lingered at Thy sacred feet.\n\n   Still through decaying ages as they glide,\n   Thou lov\u2019st Thy chosen remnant to divide;\n      Sprinkled along the waste of years\n      Full many a soft green isle appears:\n   Pause where we may upon the desert road,\n   Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode.\n\n   When withering blasts of error swept the sky,\n   And Love\u2019s last flower seemed fain to droop and die,\n      How sweet, how lone the ray benign\n      On sheltered nooks of Palestine!\n   Then to his early home did Love repair,\n   And cheered his sickening heart with his own native air.\n\n   Years roll away: again the tide of crime\n   Has swept Thy footsteps from the favoured clime\n      Where shall the holy Cross find rest?\n      On a crowned monarch\u2019s mail\u00e8d breast:\n   Like some bright angel o\u2019er the darkling scene,\n   Through court and camp he holds his heavenward course serene.\n\n   A fouler vision yet; an age of light,\n   Light without love, glares on the aching sight:\n      Oh, who can tell how calm and sweet,\n      Meek Walton, shows thy green retreat,\n   When wearied with the tale thy times disclose,\n   The eye first finds thee out in thy secure repose?\n\n   Thus bad and good their several warnings give\n   Of His approach, whom none may see and live:\n      Faith\u2019s ear, with awful still delight,\n      Counts them like minute-bells at night.\n   Keeping the heart awake till dawn of morn,\n   While to her funeral pile this aged world is borne.\n\n   But what are Heaven\u2019s alarms to hearts that cower\n   In wilful slumber, deepening every hour,\n      That draw their curtains closer round,\n      The nearer swells the trumpet\u2019s sound?\n   Lord, ere our trembling lamps sink down and die,\n   Touch us with chastening hand, and make us feel Thee nigh.\n\n\n\nSecond Sunday in Advent.\n\n\n    And when these things begin to pass, then look up, and lift up your\n    heads; for your redemption draweth night.  _St. Luke_ xxi. 28.\n\n   NOT till the freezing blast is still,\n   Till freely leaps the sparkling rill,\n   And gales sweep soft from summer skies,\n   As o\u2019er a sleeping infant\u2019s eyes\n   A mother\u2019s kiss; ere calls like these,\n   No sunny gleam awakes the trees,\n   Nor dare the tender flowerets show\n   Their bosoms to th\u2019 uncertain glow.\n\n   Why then, in sad and wintry time,\n   Her heavens all dark with doubt and crime,\n   Why lifts the Church her drooping head,\n   As though her evil hour were fled?\n   Is she less wise than leaves of spring,\n   Or birds that cower with folded wing?\n   What sees she in this lowering sky\n   To tempt her meditative eye?\n\n   She has a charm, a word of fire,\n   A pledge of love that cannot tire;\n   By tempests, earthquakes, and by wars,\n   By rushing waves and falling stars,\n   By every sign her Lord foretold,\n   She sees the world is waxing old,\n   And through that last and direst storm\n   Descries by faith her Saviour\u2019s form.\n\n   Not surer does each tender gem,\n   Set in the fig-tree\u2019s polish\u2019d stem,\n   Foreshow the summer season bland,\n   Than these dread signs Thy mighty hand:\n   But, oh, frail hearts, and spirits dark!\n   The season\u2019s flight unwarn\u2019d we mark,\n   But miss the Judge behind the door,\n   For all the light of sacred lore:\n\n   Yet is He there; beneath our eaves\n   Each sound His wakeful ear receives:\n   Hush, idle words, and thoughts of ill,\n   Your Lord is listening: peace, be still.\n   Christ watches by a Christian\u2019s hearth,\n   Be silent, \u201cvain deluding mirth,\u201d\n   Till in thine alter\u2019d voice be known\n   Somewhat of Resignation\u2019s tone.\n\n   But chiefly ye should lift your gaze\n   Above the world\u2019s uncertain haze,\n   And look with calm unwavering eye\n   On the bright fields beyond the sky,\n   Ye, who your Lord\u2019s commission bear\n   His way of mercy to prepare:\n   Angels He calls ye: be your strife\n   To lead on earth an Angel\u2019s life.\n\n   Think not of rest; though dreams be sweet,\n   Start up, and ply your heavenward feet.\n   Is not God\u2019s oath upon your head,\n   Ne\u2019er to sink back on slothful bed,\n   Never again your loans untie,\n   Nor let your torches waste and die,\n   Till, when the shadows thickest fall,\n   Ye hear your Master\u2019s midnight call?\n\n\n\nThird Sunday in Advent.\n\n\n    What went ye out into the wilderness to see?  A reed shaken with the\n    wind? . . . But what went ye out for to see?  A prophet? yea, I say\n    unto you, and more than a prophet.  _St. Matthew_ xi. 7, 9.\n\n      WHAT went ye out to see\n      O\u2019er the rude sandy lea,\n   Where stately Jordan flows by many a palm,\n      Or where Gennesaret\u2019s wave\n      Delights the flowers to lave,\n   That o\u2019er her western slope breathe airs of balm.\n\n      All through the summer night,\n      Those blossoms red and bright\n   Spread their soft breasts, unheeding, to the breeze,\n      Like hermits watching still\n      Around the sacred hill,\n   Where erst our Saviour watched upon His knees.\n\n      The Paschal moon above\n      Seems like a saint to rove,\n   Left shining in the world with Christ alone;\n      Below, the lake\u2019s still face\n      Sleeps sweetly in th\u2019 embrace\n   Of mountains terrac\u2019d high with mossy stone.\n\n      Here may we sit, and dream\n      Over the heavenly theme,\n   Till to our soul the former days return;\n      Till on the grassy bed,\n      Where thousands once He fed,\n   The world\u2019s incarnate Maker we discern.\n\n      O cross no more the main,\n      Wandering so will and vain,\n   To count the reeds that tremble in the wind,\n      On listless dalliance bound,\n      Like children gazing round,\n   Who on God\u2019s works no seal of Godhead find.\n\n      Bask not in courtly bower,\n      Or sun-bright hall of power,\n   Pass Babel quick, and seek the holy land\u2014\n      From robes of Tyrian dye\n      Turn with undazzled eye\n   To Bethlehem\u2019s glade, or Carmel\u2019s haunted strand.\n\n      Or choose thee out a cell\n      In Kedron\u2019s storied dell,\n   Beside the springs of Love, that never die;\n      Among the olives kneel\n      The chill night-blast to feel,\n   And watch the Moon that saw thy Master\u2019s agony.\n\n      Then rise at dawn of day,\n      And wind thy thoughtful way,\n   Where rested once the Temple\u2019s stately shade,\n      With due feet tracing round\n      The city\u2019s northern bound,\n   To th\u2019 other holy garden, where the Lord was laid.\n\n      Who thus alternate see\n      His death and victory,\n   Rising and falling as on angel wings,\n      They, while they seem to roam,\n      Draw daily nearer home,\n   Their heart untravell\u2019d still adores the King of kings.\n\n      Or, if at home they stay,\n      Yet are they, day by day,\n   In spirit journeying through the glorious land,\n      Not for light Fancy\u2019s reed,\n      Nor Honour\u2019s purple meed,\n   Nor gifted Prophet\u2019s lore, nor Science\u2019 wondrous wand.\n\n      But more than Prophet, more\n      Than Angels can adore\n   With face unveiled, is He they go to seek:\n      Bless\u00e8d be God, Whose grace\n      Shows Him in every place\n   To homeliest hearts of pilgrims pure and meek.\n\n\n\nFourth Sunday in Advent.\n\n\n    The eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that\n    hear shall hearken.  _Isaiah_ xxxii. 3\n\n   OF the bright things in earth and air\n      How little can the heart embrace!\n   Soft shades and gleaming lights are there\u2014\n      I know it well, but cannot trace.\n\n   Mine eye unworthy seems to read\n      One page of Nature\u2019s beauteous book;\n   It lies before me, fair outspread\u2014\n      I only cast a wishful look.\n\n   I cannot paint to Memory\u2019s eye\n      The scene, the glance, I dearest love\u2014\n   Unchanged themselves, in me they die,\n      Or faint or false their shadows prove.\n\n   In vain, with dull and tuneless ear,\n      I linger by soft Music\u2019s cell,\n   And in my heart of hearts would hear\n      What to her own she deigns to tell.\n\n   \u2019Tis misty all, both sight and sound\u2014\n      I only know \u2019tis fair and sweet\u2014\n   \u2019Tis wandering on enchanted ground\n      With dizzy brow and tottering feet.\n\n   But patience! there may come a time\n      When these dull ears shall scan aright\n   Strains that outring Earth\u2019s drowsy chime,\n      As Heaven outshines the taper\u2019s light.\n\n   These eyes, that dazzled now and weak,\n      At glancing motes in sunshine wink.\n   Shall see the Kings full glory break,\n      Nor from the blissful vision shrink:\n\n   In fearless love and hope uncloyed\n      For ever on that ocean bright\n   Empowered to gaze; and undestroyed,\n      Deeper and deeper plunge in light.\n\n   Though scarcely now their laggard glance\n      Reach to an arrow\u2019s flight, that day\n   They shall behold, and not in trance,\n      The region \u201cvery far away.\u201d\n\n   If Memory sometimes at our spell\n      Refuse to speak, or speak amiss,\n   We shall not need her where we dwell\n      Ever in sight of all our bliss.\n\n   Meanwhile, if over sea or sky\n      Some tender lights unnoticed fleet,\n   Or on loved features dawn and die,\n      Unread, to us, their lesson sweet;\n\n   Yet are there saddening sights around,\n      Which Heaven, in mercy, spares us too,\n   And we see far in holy ground,\n      If duly purged our mental view.\n\n   The distant landscape draws not nigh\n      For all our gazing; but the soul,\n   That upward looks, may still descry\n      Nearer, each day, the brightening goal.\n\n   And thou, too curious ear, that fain\n      Wouldst thread the maze of Harmony,\n   Content thee with one simple strain,\n      The lowlier, sure, the worthier thee;\n\n   Till thou art duly trained, and taught\n      The concord sweet of Love divine:\n   Then, with that inward Music fraught,\n      For ever rise, and sing, and shine.\n\n\n\nChristmas Day.\n\n\n    And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly\n    host, praising God.  _St. Luke_ ii. 13.\n\n         WHAT sudden blaze of song\n            Spreads o\u2019er th\u2019 expanse of Heaven?\n      In waves of light it thrills along,\n            Th\u2019 angelic signal given\u2014\n      \u201cGlory to God!\u201d from yonder central fire\n   Flows out the echoing lay beyond the starry choir;\n\n         Like circles widening round\n            Upon a clear blue river,\n      Orb after orb, the wondrous sound\n            Is echoed on for ever:\n      \u201cGlory to God on high, on earth be peace,\n   And love towards men of love\u2014salvation and release.\u201d\n\n         Yet stay, before thou dare\n            To join that festal throng;\n      Listen and mark what gentle air\n            First stirred the tide of song;\n      \u2019Tis not, \u201cthe Saviour born in David\u2019s home,\n   To Whom for power and health obedient worlds should come:\u201d\u2014\n\n         \u2019Tis not, \u201cthe Christ the Lord:\u201d\n            With fixed adoring look\n      The choir of Angels caught the word,\n            Nor yet their silence broke:\n      But when they heard the sign where Christ should be,\n   In sudden light they shone and heavenly harmony.\n\n         Wrapped in His swaddling bands,\n            And in His manger laid,\n      The Hope and Glory of all lands\n            Is come to the world\u2019s aid:\n      No peaceful home upon his cradle smiled,\n   Guests rudely went and came, where slept the royal Child.\n\n         But where Thou dwellest, Lord,\n            No other thought should be,\n      Once duly welcomed and adored,\n            How should I part with Thee?\n      Bethlehem must lose Thee soon, but Thou wilt grace\n   The single heart to be Thy sure abiding-place.\n\n         Thee, on the bosom laid\n            Of a pure virgin mind,\n      In quiet ever, and in shade,\n            Shepherd and sage may find;\n      They, who have bowed untaught to Nature\u2019s sway,\n   And they, who follow Truth along her star-paved way.\n\n         The pastoral spirits first\n            Approach Thee, Babe divine,\n      For they in lowly thoughts are nursed,\n            Meet for Thy lowly shrine:\n      Sooner than they should miss where Thou dost dwell,\n   Angela from Heaven will stoop to guide them to Thy cell.\n\n         Still, as the day comes round\n            For Thee to be revealed,\n      By wakeful shepherds Thou art found,\n            Abiding in the field.\n      All through the wintry heaven and chill night air,\n   In music and in light Thou dawnest on their prayer.\n\n         O faint not ye for fear\u2014\n            What though your wandering sheep,\n      Reckless of what they see and hear,\n            Lie lost in wilful sleep?\n      High Heaven in mercy to your sad annoy\n   Still greets you with glad tidings of immortal joy.\n\n         Think on th\u2019 eternal home,\n            The Saviour left for you;\n      Think on the Lord most holy, come\n            To dwell with hearts untrue:\n      So shall ye tread untired His pastoral ways,\n   And in the darkness sing your carol of high praise.\n\n\n\nSt. Stephen\u2019s Day.\n\n\n    He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven,\n    and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of\n    God.  _Acts_ vii. 55\n\n   AS rays around the source of light\n   Stream upward ere he glow in sight,\n   And watching by his future flight\n      Set the clear heavens on fire;\n   So on the King of Martyrs wait\n   Three chosen bands, in royal state,\n   And all earth owns, of good and great,\n      Is gather\u2019d in that choir.\n\n   One presses on, and welcomes death:\n   One calmly yields his willing breath,\n   Nor slow, nor hurrying, but in faith\n      Content to die or live:\n   And some, the darlings of their Lord,\n   Play smiling with the flame and sword,\n   And, ere they speak, to His sure word\n      Unconscious witness give.\n\n   Foremost and nearest to His throne,\n   By perfect robes of triumph known,\n   And likest Him in look and tone,\n      The holy Stephen kneels,\n   With stedfast gaze, as when the sky\n   Flew open to his fainting eye,\n   Which, like a fading lamp, flash\u2019d high,\n      Seeing what death conceals.\n\n   Well might you guess what vision bright\n   Was present to his raptured sight,\n   E\u2019en as reflected streams of light\n      Their solar source betray\u2014\n   The glory which our God surrounds,\n   The Son of Man, the atoning wounds\u2014\n   He sees them all; and earth\u2019s dull bounds\n      Are melting fast away.\n\n   He sees them all\u2014no other view\n   Could stamp the Saviour\u2019s likeness true,\n   Or with His love so deep embrue\n      Man\u2019s sullen heart and gross\u2014\n   \u201cJesus, do Thou my soul receive:\n   Jesu, do Thou my foes forgive;\u201d\n   He who would learn that prayer must live\n      Under the holy Cross.\n\n   He, though he seem on earth to move,\n   Must glide in air like gentle dove,\n   From yon unclouded depths above\n      Must draw his purer breath;\n   Till men behold his angel face\n   All radiant with celestial grace,\n   Martyr all o\u2019er, and meet to trace\n      The lines of Jesus\u2019 death.\n\n\n\nSt. John\u2019s Day.\n\n\n    Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?\n    Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is\n    that to thee? follow thou Me.  _St. John_ xxi. 21, 22.\n\n   \u201cLORD, and what shall this man do?\u201d\n      Ask\u2019st thou, Christian, for thy friend?\n   If his love for Christ be true,\n      Christ hath told thee of his end:\n   This is he whom God approves,\n   This is he whom Jesus loves.\n\n   Ask not of him more than this,\n      Leave it in his Saviour\u2019s breast,\n   Whether, early called to bliss,\n      He in youth shall find his rest,\n   Or arm\u00e8d in his station wait\n   Till his Lord be at the gate:\n\n   Whether in his lonely course\n      (Lonely, not forlorn) he stay,\n   Or with Love\u2019s supporting force\n      Cheat the toil, and cheer the way:\n   Leave it all in His high hand,\n   Who doth hearts as streams command.\n\n   Gales from Heaven, if so He will,\n      Sweeter melodies can wake\n   On the lonely mountain rill\n      Than the meeting waters make.\n   Who hath the Father and the Son,\n   May be left, but not alone.\n\n   Sick or healthful, slave or free,\n      Wealthy, or despised and poor\u2014\n   What is that to him or thee,\n      So his love to Christ endure?\n   When the shore is won at last,\n   Who will count the billows past?\n\n   Only, since our souls will shrink\n      At the touch of natural grief,\n   When our earthly loved ones sink,\n      Lend us, Lord, Thy sure relief;\n   Patient hearts, their pain to see,\n   And Thy grace, to follow Thee.\n\n\n\nThe Holy Innocents.\n\n\n    These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God\n    and to the Lamb.  _Rev._ xiv. 4.\n\n      SAY, ye celestial guards, who wait\n   In Bethlehem, round the Saviour\u2019s palace gate,\n      Say, who are these on golden wings,\n   That hover o\u2019er the new-born King of kings,\n      Their palms and garlands telling plain\n   That they are of the glorious martyr-train,\n      Next to yourselves ordained to praise\n   His Name, and brighten as on Him they gaze?\n\n      But where their spoils and trophies? where\n   The glorious dint a martyr\u2019s shield should bear?\n      How chance no cheek among them wears\n   The deep-worn trace of penitential tears,\n      But all is bright and smiling love,\n   As if, fresh-borne from Eden\u2019s happy grove,\n      They had flown here, their King to see,\n   Nor ever had been heirs of dark mortality?\n\n      Ask, and some angel will reply,\n   \u201cThese, like yourselves, were born to sin and die,\n      But ere the poison root was grown,\n   God set His seal, and marked them for His own.\n      Baptised its blood for Jesus\u2019 sake,\n   Now underneath the Cross their bed they make,\n      Not to be scared from that sure rest\n   By frightened mother\u2019s shriek, or warrior\u2019s waving crest.\u201d\n\n      Mindful of these, the firstfruits sweet\n   Borne by this suffering Church her Lord to greet;\n      Blessed Jesus ever loved to trace\n   The \u201cinnocent brightness\u201d of an infant\u2019s face.\n      He raised them in His holy arms,\n   He blessed them from the world and all its harms:\n      Heirs though they were of sin and shame,\n   He blessed them in his own and in his Father\u2019s Name.\n\n      Then, as each fond unconscious child\n   On the everlasting Parent sweetly smiled\n      (Like infants sporting on the shore,\n   That tremble not at Ocean\u2019s boundless roar),\n      Were they not present to Thy thought,\n   All souls, that in their cradles Thou hast bought?\n      But chiefly these, who died for Thee,\n   That Thou might\u2019st live for them a sadder death to see.\n\n      And next to these, Thy gracious word\n   Was as a pledge of benediction stored\n      For Christian mothers, while they moan\n   Their treasured hopes, just born, baptised, and gone.\n      Oh, joy for Rachel\u2019s broken heart!\n   She and her babes shall meet no more to part;\n      So dear to Christ her pious haste\n   To trust them in His arms for ever safe embraced.\n\n      She dares not grudge to leave them there,\n   Where to behold them was her heart\u2019s first prayer;\n      She dares not grieve\u2014but she must weep,\n   As her pale placid martyr sinks to sleep,\n      Teaching so well and silently\n   How at the shepherd\u2019s call the lamb should die:\n      How happier far than life the end\n   Of souls that infant-like beneath their burthen bend.\n\n\n\nFirst Sunday after Christmas.\n\n\n    So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.\n    _Isaiah_ xxxviii. 8; compare _Josh._ x. 13.\n\n      \u2019TIS true, of old the unchanging sun\n      His daily course refused to run,\n         The pale moon hurrying to the west\n      Paused at a mortal\u2019s call, to aid\n      The avenging storm of war, that laid\n   Seven guilty realms at once on earth\u2019s defiled breast.\n\n      But can it be, one suppliant tear\n      Should stay the ever-moving sphere?\n         A sick man\u2019s lowly-breath\u00e8d sigh,\n      When from the world he turns away,\n      And hides his weary eyes to pray,\n   Should change your mystic dance, ye wanderers of the sky?\n\n      We too, O Lord, would fain command,\n      As then, Thy wonder-working hand,\n         And backward force the waves of Time,\n      That now so swift and silent bear\n      Our restless bark from year to year;\n   Help us to pause and mourn to Thee our tale of crime.\n\n      Bright hopes, that erst the bosom warmed,\n      And vows, too pure to be performed,\n         And prayers blown wide by gales of care;\u2014\n      These, and such faint half-waking dreams,\n      Like stormy lights on mountain streams,\n   Wavering and broken all, athwart the conscience glare.\n\n      How shall we \u2019scape the o\u2019erwhelming Past?\n      Can spirits broken, joys o\u2019ercast,\n         And eyes that never more may smile:\u2014\n      Can these th\u2019 avenging bolt delay,\n      Or win us back one little day\n   The bitterness of death to soften and beguile?\n\n      Father and Lover of our souls!\n      Though darkly round Thine anger rolls,\n         Thy sunshine smiles beneath the gloom,\n      Thou seek\u2019st to warn us, not confound,\n      Thy showers would pierce the hardened ground\n   And win it to give out its brightness and perfume.\n\n      Thou smil\u2019st on us in wrath, and we,\n      E\u2019en in remorse, would smile on Thee,\n         The tears that bathe our offered hearts,\n      We would not have them stained and dim,\n      But dropped from wings of seraphim,\n   All glowing with the light accepted love imparts.\n\n      Time\u2019s waters will not ebb, nor stay;\n      Power cannot change them, but Love may;\n         What cannot be, Love counts it done.\n      Deep in the heart, her searching view\n      Can read where Faith is fixed and true,\n   Through shades of setting life can see Heaven\u2019s work begun.\n\n      O Thou, who keep\u2019st the Key of Love,\n      Open Thy fount, eternal Dove,\n         And overflow this heart of mine,\n      Enlarging as it fills with Thee,\n      Till in one blaze of charity\n   Care and remorse are lost, like motes in light divine;\n\n      Till as each moment wafts us higher,\n      By every gush of pure desire,\n         And high-breathed hope of joys above,\n      By every secret sigh we heave,\n      Whole years of folly we outlive,\n   In His unerring sight, who measures Life by Love.\n\n\n\nThe Circumcision of Christ.\n\n\n    In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without\n    hands.  _Coloss._ ii. 11.\n\n      THE year begins with Thee,\n      And Thou beginn\u2019st with woe,\n   To let the world of sinners see\n      That blood for sin must flow.\n\n      Thine infant cries, O Lord,\n      Thy tears upon the breast,\n   Are not enough\u2014the legal sword\n      Must do its stern behest.\n\n      Like sacrificial wine\n      Poured on a victim\u2019s head\n   Are those few precious drops of Thine,\n      Now first to offering led.\n\n      They are the pledge and seal\n      Of Christ\u2019s unswerving faith\n   Given to His Sire, our souls to heal,\n      Although it cost His death.\n\n      They to His Church of old,\n      To each true Jewish heart,\n   In Gospel graces manifold\n      Communion blest impart.\n\n      Now of Thy love we deem\n      As of an ocean vast,\n   Mounting in tides against the stream\n      Of ages gone and past.\n\n      Both theirs and ours Thou art,\n      As we and they are Thine;\n   Kings, Prophets, Patriarchs\u2014all have part\n      Along the sacred line.\n\n      By blood and water too\n      God\u2019s mark is set on Thee,\n   That in Thee every faithful view\n      Both covenants might see.\n\n      O bond of union, dear\n      And strong as is Thy grace!\n   Saints, parted by a thousand year,\n      May thus in heart embrace.\n\n      Is there a mourner true,\n      Who fallen on faithless days,\n   Sighs for the heart-consoling view\n      Of those Heaven deigned to praise?\n\n      In spirit may\u2019st thou meet\n      With faithful Abraham here,\n   Whom soon in Eden thou shalt greet\n      A nursing Father dear.\n\n      Would\u2019st thou a poet be?\n      And would thy dull heart fain\n   Borrow of Israel\u2019s minstrelsy\n      One high enraptured strain?\n\n      Come here thy soul to tune,\n      Here set thy feeble chant,\n   Here, if at all beneath the moon,\n      Is holy David\u2019s haunt.\n\n      Art thou a child of tears,\n      Cradled in care and woe?\n   And seems it hard, thy vernal years\n      Few vernal joys can show?\n\n      And fall the sounds of mirth\n      Sad on thy lonely heart,\n   From all the hopes and charms of earth\n      Untimely called to part?\n\n      Look here, and hold thy peace:\n      The Giver of all good\n   E\u2019en from the womb takes no release\n      From suffering, tears, and blood.\n\n      If thou would\u2019st reap in love,\n      First sow in holy fear:\n   So life a winter\u2019s morn may prove\n      To a bright endless year.\n\n\n\nSecond Sunday after Christmas.\n\n\n    When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their\n    tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of\n    Israel will not forsake them.  _Isaiah_, xli. 17.\n\n   AND wilt thou hear the fevered heart\n      To Thee in silence cry?\n   And as th\u2019 inconstant wildfires dart\n      Out of the restless eye,\n   Wilt thou forgive the wayward though\n   By kindly woes yet half untaught\n   A Saviours right, so dearly bought,\n      That Hope should never die?\n\n   Thou wilt: for many a languid prayer\n      Has reached Thee from the wild,\n   Since the lorn mother, wandering there,\n      Cast down her fainting child,\n   Then stole apart to weep and die,\n   Nor knew an angel form was nigh,\n   To show soft waters gushing by,\n      And dewy shadows mild.\n\n   Thou wilt\u2014for Thou art Israel\u2019s God,\n      And Thine unwearied arm\n   Is ready yet with Moses\u2019 rod,\n      The hidden rill to charm\n   Out of the dry unfathomed deep\n   Of sands, that lie in lifeless sleep,\n   Save when the scorching whirlwinds heap\n      Their waves in rude alarm.\n\n   These moments of wild wrath are Thine\u2014\n      Thine, too, the drearier hour\n   When o\u2019er th\u2019 horizon\u2019s silent line\n      Fond hopeless fancies cower,\n   And on the traveller\u2019s listless way\n   Rises and sets th\u2019 unchanging day,\n   No cloud in heaven to slake its ray,\n      On earth no sheltering bower.\n\n   Thou wilt be there, and not forsake,\n      To turn the bitter pool\n   Into a bright and breezy lake,\n      This throbbing brow to cool:\n   Till loft awhile with Thee alone\n   The wilful heart be fain to own\n   That He, by whom our bright hours shone,\n      Our darkness best may rule.\n\n   The scent of water far away\n      Upon the breeze is flung;\n   The desert pelican to-day\n      Securely leaves her young,\n   Reproving thankless man, who fears\n   To journey on a few lone years,\n   Where on the sand Thy step appears,\n      Thy crown in sight is hung.\n\n   Thou, who did sit on Jacob\u2019s well\n      The weary hour of noon,\n   The languid pulses Thou canst tell,\n      The nerveless spirit tune.\n   Thou from Whose cross in anguish burst\n   The cry that owned Thy dying thirst,\n   To Thee we turn, our Last and First,\n      Our Sun and soothing Moon.\n\n   From darkness, here, and dreariness\n      We ask not full repose,\n   Only be Thou at hand, to bless\n      Our trial hour of woes.\n   Is not the pilgrim\u2019s toil o\u2019erpaid\n   By the clear rill and palmy shade?\n   And see we not, up Earth\u2019s dark glade,\n      The gate of Heaven unclose?\n\n\n\nThe Epiphany.\n\n\n    And lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till\n    it came and stood over where the young Child was.  When they saw the\n    star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.  _St. Matthew_ ii. 9,\n    10.\n\n   STAR of the East, how sweet art Thou,\n      Seen in life\u2019s early morning sky,\n   Ere yet a cloud has dimmed the brow,\n      While yet we gaze with childish eye;\n\n   When father, mother, nursing friend,\n      Most dearly loved, and loving best,\n   First bid us from their arms ascend,\n      Pointing to Thee, in Thy sure rest.\n\n   Too soon the glare of earthly day\n      Buries, to us, Thy brightness keen,\n   And we are left to find our way\n      By faith and hope in Thee unseen.\n\n   What matter? if the waymarks sure\n      On every side are round us set,\n   Soon overleaped, but not obscure?\n      \u2019Tis ours to mark them or forget.\n\n   What matter? if in calm old age\n      Our childhood\u2019s star again arise,\n   Crowning our lonely pilgrimage\n      With all that cheers a wanderer\u2019s eyes?\n\n   Ne\u2019er may we lose it from our sight,\n      Till all our hopes and thoughts are led\n   To where it stays its lucid flight\n      Over our Saviour\u2019s lowly bed.\n\n   There, swathed in humblest poverty,\n      On Chastity\u2019s meek lap enshrined,\n   With breathless Reverence waiting by,\n      When we our Sovereign Master find,\n\n   Will not the long-forgotten glow\n      Of mingled joy and awe return,\n   When stars above or flowers below\n      First made our infant spirits burn?\n\n   Look on us, Lord, and take our parts\n      E\u2019en on Thy throne of purity!\n   From these our proud yet grovelling hearts\n      Hide not Thy mild forgiving eye.\n\n   Did not the Gentile Church find grace,\n      Our mother dear, this favoured day?\n   With gold and myrrh she sought Thy face;\n      Nor didst Thou turn Thy face away.\n\n   She too, in earlier, purer days,\n      Had watched thee gleaming faint and far\u2014\n   But wandering in self-chosen ways\n      She lost Thee quite, Thou lovely star.\n\n   Yet had her Father\u2019s finger turned\n      To Thee her first inquiring glance:\n   The deeper shame within her burned,\n      When wakened from her wilful trance.\n\n   Behold, her wisest throng Thy gate,\n      Their richest, sweetest, purest store,\n   (Yet owned too worthless and too late,)\n      They lavish on Thy cottage-floor.\n\n   They give their best\u2014O tenfold shame\n      On us their fallen progeny,\n   Who sacrifice the blind and lame\u2014\n      Who will not wake or fast with Thee!\n\n\n\nFirst Sunday after Epiphany.\n\n\n    They shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water\n    courses.  _Isaiah_ xliv. 4.\n\n   LESSONS sweet of spring returning,\n      Welcome to the thoughtful heart!\n   May I call ye sense or learning,\n      Instinct pure, or Heaven-taught art?\n   Be your title what it may,\n   Sweet this lengthening April day,\n   While with you the soul is free,\n   Ranging wild o\u2019er hill and lea.\n\n   Soft as Memnon\u2019s harp at morning,\n      To the inward ear devout,\n   Touched by light, with heavenly warning\n      Your transporting chords ring out.\n   Every leaf in every nook,\n   Every wave in every brook,\n   Chanting with a solemn voice,\n   Minds us of our better choice.\n\n   Needs no show of mountain hoary,\n      Winding shore or deepening glen,\n   Where the landscape in its glory\n      Teaches truth to wandering men:\n   Give true hearts but earth and sky,\n   And some flowers to bloom and die,\n   Homely scenes and simple views\n   Lowly thoughts may best infuse.\n\n   See the soft green willow springing\n      Where the waters gently pass,\n   Every way her free arms flinging\n      O\u2019er the moist and reedy grass.\n   Long ere winter blasts are fled,\n   See her tipped with vernal red,\n   And her kindly flower displayed\n   Ere her leaf can cast a shade.\n\n   Though the rudest hand assail her,\n      Patiently she droops awhile,\n   But when showers and breezes hail her,\n      Wears again her willing smile.\n   Thus I learn Contentment\u2019s power\n   From the slighted willow bower,\n   Ready to give thanks and live\n   On the least that Heaven may give.\n\n   If, the quiet brooklet leaving,\n      Up the stony vale I wind,\n   Haply half in fancy grieving\n      For the shades I leave behind,\n   By the dusty wayside drear,\n   Nightingales with joyous cheer\n   Sing, my sadness to reprove,\n   Gladlier than in cultured grove.\n\n   Where the thickest boughs are twining\n      Of the greenest darkest tree,\n   There they plunge, the light declining\u2014\n      All may hear, but none may see.\n   Fearless of the passing hoof,\n   Hardly will they fleet aloof;\n   So they live in modest ways,\n   Trust entire, and ceaseless praise.\n\n\n\nSecond Sunday after Epiphany.\n\n\n    Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine: and when men\n    have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the\n    good wine until now.  _St. John_ ii. 10.\n\n   THE heart of childhood is all mirth:\n      We frolic to and fro\n   As free and blithe, as if on earth\n      Were no such thing as woe.\n\n   But if indeed with reckless faith\n      We trust the flattering voice,\n   Which whispers, \u201cTake thy fill ere death,\n      Indulge thee and rejoice;\u201d\n\n   Too surely, every setting day,\n      Some lost delight we mourn;\n   The flowers all die along our way\n      Till we, too, die forlorn.\n\n   Such is the world\u2019s gay garish feast,\n      In her first charming bowl\n   Infusing all that fires the breast,\n      And cheats the unstable soul.\n\n   And still, as loud the revel swells,\n      The fevered pulse beats higher,\n   Till the seared taste from foulest wells\n      Is fain to slake its fire.\n\n   Unlike the feast of heavenly love\n      Spread at the Saviour\u2019s word\n   For souls that hear His call, and prove\n      Meet for His bridal board.\n\n   Why should we fear, youth\u2019s draught of joy\n      If pure would sparkle less?\n   Why should the cup the sooner cloy,\n      Which God hath deigned to bless?\n\n   For, is it Hope, that thrills so keen\n      Along each bounding vein,\n   Still whispering glorious things unseen?\u2014\n      Faith makes the vision plain.\n\n   The world would kill her soon: but Faith\n      Her daring dreams will cherish,\n   Speeding her gaze o\u2019er time and death\n      To realms where nought can perish.\n\n   Or is it Love, the dear delight\n      Of hearts that know no guile,\n   That all around see all things bright\n      With their own magic smile?\n\n   The silent joy that sinks so deep,\n      Of confidence and rest,\n   Lulled in a father\u2019s arms to sleep,\n      Clasped to a mother\u2019s breast?\n\n   Who, but a Christian, through all life\n      That blessing may prolong?\n   Who, through the world\u2019s sad day of strife,\n      Still chant his morning song?\n\n   Fathers may hate us or forsake,\n      God\u2019s foundlings then are we:\n   Mother on child no pity take,\n      But we shall still have Thee.\n\n   We may look home, and seek in vain\n      A fond fraternal heart,\n   But Christ hath given His promise plain\n      To do a Brother\u2019s part.\n\n   Nor shall dull age, as worldlings say,\n      The heavenward flame annoy:\n   The Saviour cannot pass away,\n      And with Him lives our joy.\n\n   Ever the richest, tenderest glow\n      Sets round the autumnal sun\u2014\n   But there sight fails: no heart may know\n      The bliss when life is done.\n\n   Such is Thy banquet, dearest Lord;\n      O give us grace, to cast\n   Our lot with Thine, to trust Thy word,\n      And keep our best till last.\n\n\n\nThird Sunday after Epiphany.\n\n\n    When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to them that followed,\n    Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in\n    Israel.  _St. Matthew_ viii. 10.\n\n      I MARKED a rainbow in the north,\n         What time the wild autumnal sun\n      From his dark veil at noon looked forth,\n         As glorying in his course half done,\n      Flinging soft radiance far and wide\n   Over the dusky heaven and bleak hill-side.\n\n      It was a gleam to Memory dear,\n         And as I walk and muse apart,\n      When all seems faithless round and drear,\n         I would revive it in my heart,\n      And watch how light can find its way\n   To regions farthest from the fount of day.\n\n      Light flashes in the gloomiest sky,\n         And Music in the dullest plain,\n      For there the lark is soaring high\n         Over her flat and leafless reign,\n      And chanting in so blithe a tone,\n   It shames the weary heart to feel itself alone.\n\n      Brighter than rainbow in the north,\n         More cheery than the matin lark,\n      Is the soft gleam of Christian worth,\n         Which on some holy house we mark;\n      Dear to the pastor\u2019s aching heart\n   To think, where\u2019er he looks, such gleam may have a part;\n\n      May dwell, unseen by all but Heaven,\n         Like diamond blazing in the mine;\n      For ever, where such grace is given,\n         It fears in open day to shine,\n      Lest the deep stain it owns within\n   Break out, and Faith be shamed by the believer\u2019s sin.\n\n      In silence and afar they wait,\n         To find a prayer their Lord may hear:\n      Voice of the poor and desolate,\n         You best may bring it to His ear;\n      Your grateful intercessions rise\n   With more than royal pomp, and pierce the skies.\n\n      Happy the soul whose precious cause\n         You in the Sovereign Presence plead\u2014\n      \u201cThis is the lover of Thy laws,\n         The friend of Thine in fear and need,\u201d\n      For to the poor Thy mercy lends\n   That solemn style, \u201cThy nation and Thy friends.\u201d\n\n      He too is blest whose outward eye\n         The graceful lines of art may trace,\n      While his free spirit, soaring high,\n         Discerns the glorious from the base;\n      Till out of dust his magic raise\n   A home for prayer and love, and full harmonious praise,\n\n      Where far away and high above,\n         In maze on maze the tranc\u00e8d sight\n      Strays, mindful of that heavenly love\n         Which knows no end in depth or height,\n      While the strong breath of Music seems\n   To waft us ever on, soaring in blissful dreams.\n\n      What though in poor and humble guise\n         Thou here didst sojourn, cottage-born?\n      Yet from Thy glory in the skies\n         Our earthly gold Thou dost not scorn.\n      For Love delights to bring her best,\n   And where Love is, that offering evermore is blest.\n\n      Love on the Saviour\u2019s dying head\n         Her spikenard drops unblamed may pour,\n      May mount His cross, and wrap Him dead\n         In spices from the golden shore;\n      Risen, may embalm His sacred name\n   With all a Painter\u2019s art, and all a Minstrel\u2019s flame.\n\n      Worthless and lost our offerings seem,\n         Drops in the ocean of His praise;\n      But Mercy with her genial beam\n         Is ripening them to pearly blaze,\n      To sparkle in His crown above,\n   Who welcomes here a child\u2019s as there an angel\u2019s love.\n\n\n\nFourth Sunday after Epiphany.\n\n\n    When they saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart out of\n    their coasts.  _St. Matthew_ viii. 34.\n\n         THEY know the Almighty\u2019s power,\n      Who, wakened by the rushing midnight shower,\n         Watch for the fitful breeze\n      To howl and chafe amid the bending trees,\n         Watch for the still white gleam\n      To bathe the landscape in a fiery stream,\n      Touching the tremulous eye with sense of light\n   Too rapid and too pure for all but angel sight.\n\n         They know the Almighty\u2019s love,\n      Who, when the whirlwinds rock the topmost grove,\n         Stand in the shade, and hear\n      The tumult with a deep exulting fear,\n         How, in their fiercest sway,\n      Curbed by some power unseen, they die away,\n      Like a bold steed that owns his rider\u2019s arm,\n   Proud to be checked and soothed by that o\u2019er-mastering chains.\n\n         But there are storms within\n      That heave the struggling heart with wilder din,\n         And there is power and love\n      The maniac\u2019s rushing frenzy to reprove,\n         And when he takes his seat,\n      Clothed and in calmness, at his Savour\u2019s feet,\n      Is not the power as strange, the love as blest,\n   As when He said, \u201cBe still,\u201d and ocean sank to rest?\n\n         Woe to the wayward heart,\n      That gladlier turns to eye the shuddering start\n         Of Passion in her might,\n      Than marks the silent growth of grace and light;\u2014\n         Pleased in the cheerless tomb\n      To linger, while the morning rays illume\n      Green lake, and cedar tuft, and spicy glade,\n   Shaking their dewy tresses now the storm is laid.\n\n         The storm is laid\u2014and now\n      In His meek power He climbs the mountain\u2019s brow,\n         Who bade the waves go sleep,\n      And lashed the vexed fiends to their yawning deep.\n         How on a rock they stand,\n      Who watch His eye, and hold His guiding hand!\n      Not half so fixed, amid her vassal hills,\n   Rises the holy pile that Kedron\u2019s valley fills.\n\n         And wilt thou seek again\n      Thy howling waste, thy charnel-house and chain,\n         And with the demons be,\n      Rather than clasp thine own Deliverer\u2019s knee?\n         Sure \u2019tis no Heaven-bred awe\n      That bids thee from His healing touch withdraw;\n      The world and He are struggling in thine heart,\n   And in thy reckless mood thou bidd\u2019st thy Lord depart.\n\n         He, merciful and mild,\n      As erst, beholding, loves His wayward child;\n         When souls of highest birth\n      Waste their impassioned might on dreams of earth,\n         He opens Nature\u2019s book,\n      And on His glorious Gospel bids them look,\n      Till, by such chords as rule the choirs above,\n   Their lawless cries are tuned to hymns of perfect love.\n\n\n\nFifth Sunday after Epiphany.\n\n\n    Behold, the Lord\u2019s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save;\n    neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have\n    separated between you and your God.  _Isaiah_ lix. 1, 2.\n\n      \u201cWAKE, arm Divine! awake,\n         Eye of the only Wise!\n      Now for Thy glory\u2019s sake,\n         Saviour and God, arise,\n   And may Thine ear, that seal\u00e8d seems,\n   In pity mark our mournful themes!\u201d\n\n      Thus in her lonely hour\n         Thy Church is fain to cry,\n      As if Thy love and power\n         Were vanished from her sky;\n   Yet God is there, and at His side\n   He triumphs, who for sinners died.\n\n      Ah! \u2019tis the world enthralls\n         The Heaven-betroth\u00e8d breast:\n      The traitor Sense recalls\n         The soaring soul from rest.\n   That bitter sigh was all for earth,\n   For glories gone and vanished mirth.\n\n      Age would to youth return,\n         Farther from Heaven would be,\n      To feel the wildfire burn,\n         On idolising knee\n   Again to fall, and rob Thy shrine\n   Of hearts, the right of Love Divine.\n\n      Lord of this erring flock!\n         Thou whose soft showers distil\n      On ocean waste or rock,\n         Free as on Hermon hill,\n   Do Thou our craven spirits cheer,\n   And shame away the selfish tear.\n\n      \u2019Twas silent all and dead\n         Beside the barren sea,\n      Where Philip\u2019s steps were led,\n         Led by a voice from Thee\u2014\n   He rose and went, nor asked Thee why,\n   Nor stayed to heave one faithless sigh:\n\n      Upon his lonely way\n         The high-born traveller came,\n      Reading a mournful lay\n         Of \u201cOne who bore our shame,\n   Silent Himself, His name untold,\n   And yet His glories were of old.\u201d\n\n      To muse what Heaven might mean\n         His wondering brow he raised,\n      And met an eye serene\n         That on him watchful gazed.\n   No Hermit e\u2019er so welcome crossed\n   A child\u2019s lone path in woodland lost.\n\n      Now wonder turns to love;\n         The scrolls of sacred lore\n      No darksome mazes prove;\n         The desert tires no more\n   They bathe where holy waters flow,\n   Then on their way rejoicing go.\n\n      They part to meet in Heaven;\n         But of the joy they share,\n      Absolving and forgiven,\n         The sweet remembrance bear.\n   Yes\u2014mark him well, ye cold and proud.\n   Bewildered in a heartless crowd,\n\n      Starting and turning pale\n         At Rumour\u2019s angry din\u2014\n      No storm can now assail\n         The charm he wears within,\n   Rejoicing still, and doing good,\n   And with the thought of God imbued.\n\n      No glare of high estate,\n         No gloom of woe or want,\n      The radiance can abate\n         Where Heaven delights to haunt:\n   Sin only bides the genial ray,\n   And, round the Cross, makes night of day.\n\n      Then weep it from thy heart;\n         So mayst thou duly learn\n      The intercessor\u2019s part;\n         Thy prayers and tears may earn\n   For fallen souls some healing breath,\n   Era they have died the Apostate\u2019s death.\n\n\n\nSixth Sunday after Epiphany.\n\n\n    Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what\n    we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like\n    Him; for we shall see Him as he is.  _St. John_ iii. 2.\n\n      THERE are, who darkling and alone,\n      Would wish the weary night were gone,\n      Though dawning morn should only show\n      The secret of their unknown woe:\n      Who pray for sharpest throbs of pain\n      To ease them of doubt\u2019s galling chain:\n      \u201cOnly disperse the cloud,\u201d they cry,\n   \u201cAnd if our fate be death, give light and let us die.\u201d\n\n      Unwise I deem them, Lord, unmeet\n      To profit by Thy chastenings sweet,\n      For Thou wouldst have us linger still\n      Upon the verge of good or ill.\n      That on Thy guiding hand unseen\n      Our undivided hearts may lean,\n      And this our frail and foundering bark\n   Glide in the narrow wake of Thy belov\u00e8d ark.\n\n      \u2019Tis so in war\u2014the champion true\n      Loves victory more when dim in view\n      He sees her glories gild afar\n      The dusky edge of stubborn war,\n      Than if the untrodden bloodless field\n      The harvest of her laurels yield;\n      Let not my bark in calm abide,\n   But win her fearless way against the chafing tide.\n\n      \u2019Tis so in love\u2014the faithful heart\n      From her dim vision would not part,\n      When first to her fond gaze is given\n      That purest spot in Fancy\u2019s heaven,\n      For all the gorgeous sky beside,\n      Though pledged her own and sure to abide:\n      Dearer than every past noon-day\n   That twilight gleam to her, though faint and far away.\n\n      So have I seen some tender flower\n      Prized above all the vernal bower,\n      Sheltered beneath the coolest shade,\n      Embosomed in the greenest glade,\n      So frail a gem, it scarce may bear\n      The playful touch of evening air;\n      When hardier grown we love it less,\n   And trust it from our sight, not needing our caress.\n\n      And wherefore is the sweet spring-tide\n      Worth all the changeful year beside?\n      The last-born babe, why lies its part\n      Deep in the mother\u2019s inmost heart?\n      But that the Lord and Source of love\n      Would have His weakest ever prove\n      Our tenderest care\u2014and most of all\n   Our frail immortal souls, His work and Satan\u2019s thrall.\n\n      So be it, Lord; I know it best,\n      Though not as yet this wayward breast\n      Beat quite in answer to Thy voice,\n      Yet surely I have made my choice;\n      I know not yet the promised bliss,\n      Know not if I shall win or miss;\n      So doubting, rather let me die,\n   Than close with aught beside, to last eternally.\n\n      What is the Heaven we idly dream?\n      The self-deceiver\u2019s dreary theme,\n      A cloudless sun that softly shines,\n      Bright maidens and unfailing vines,\n      The warrior\u2019s pride, the hunter\u2019s mirth,\n      Poor fragments all of this low earth:\n      Such as in sleep would hardly soothe\n   A soul that once had tasted of immortal Truth.\n\n      What is the Heaven our God bestows?\n      No Prophet yet, no Angel knows;\n      Was never yet created eye\n      Could see across Eternity;\n      Not seraph\u2019s wing for ever soaring\n      Can pass the flight of souls adoring,\n      That nearer still and nearer grow\n   To the unapproach\u00e8d Lord, once made for them so low.\n\n      Unseen, unfelt their earthly growth,\n      And self-accused of sin and sloth,\n      They live and die; their names decay,\n      Their fragrance passes quite away;\n      Like violets in the freezing blast\n      No vernal steam around they cast.\u2014\n      But they shall flourish from the tomb,\n   The breath of God shall wake them into odorous bloom.\n\n      Then on the incarnate Saviour\u2019s breast,\n      The fount of sweetness, they shall rest,\n      Their spirits every hour imbued\n      More deeply with His precious blood.\n      But peace\u2014still voice and clos\u00e8d eye\n      Suit best with hearts beyond the sky,\n      Hearts training in their low abode,\n   Daily to lose themselves in hope to find their God.\n\n\n\nSeptuagesima Sunday.\n\n\n    The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are\n    clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.  _Romans_\n    i. 20.\n\n   THERE is a book, who runs may read,\n      Which heavenly truth imparts,\n   And all the lore its scholars need,\n      Pure eyes and Christian hearts.\n\n   The works of God above, below,\n      Within us and around,\n   Are pages in that book, to show\n      How God Himself is found.\n\n   The glorious sky embracing all\n      Is like the Maker\u2019s love,\n   Wherewith encompassed, great and small\n      In peace and order move.\n\n   The Moon above, the Church below,\n      A wondrous race they run,\n   But all their radiance, all their glow,\n      Each borrows of its Sun.\n\n   The Savour lends the light and heat\n      That crowns His holy hill;\n   The saints, like stars, around His seat\n      Perform their courses still.\n\n   The saints above are stars in heaven\u2014\n      What are the saints on earth?\n   Like tress they stand whom God has given,\n      Our Eden\u2019s happy birth.\n\n   Faith is their fixed unswerving root,\n      Hope their unfading flower,\n   Fair deeds of charity their fruit,\n      The glory of their bower.\n\n   The dew of heaven is like Thy grace,\n      It steals in silence down;\n   But where it lights, this favoured place\n      By richest fruits is known.\n\n   One Name above all glorious names\n      With its ten thousand tongues\n   The everlasting sea proclaims.\n      Echoing angelic songs.\n\n   The raging Fire, the roaring Wind,\n      Thy boundless power display;\n   But in the gentler breeze we find\n      Thy Spirit\u2019s viewless way.\n\n   Two worlds are ours: \u2019tis only Sin\n      Forbids us to descry\n   The mystic heaven and earth within,\n      Plain as the sea and sky.\n\n   Thou, who hast given me eyes to see\n      And love this sight so fair,\n   Give me a heart to find out Thee,\n      And read Thee everywhere.\n\n\n\nSexagesima Sunday.\n\n\n    So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of\n    Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep\n    the way of the tree of life.  _Genesis_ iii. 24; compare chap. vi.\n\n      FOE of mankind! too bold thy race:\n      Thou runn\u2019st at such a reckless pace,\n   Thine own dire work thou surely wilt confound:\n      \u2019Twas but one little drop of sin\n      We saw this morning enter in,\n   And lo! at eventide the world is drowned.\n\n      See here the fruit of wandering eyes,\n      Of worldly longings to be wise,\n   Of Passion dwelling on forbidden sweets:\n      Ye lawless glances, freely rove;\n      Ruin below and wrath above\n   Are all that now the wildering fancy meets.\n\n      Lord, when in some deep garden glade,\n      Of Thee and of myself afraid.\n   From thoughts like these among the bowers I hide,\n      Nearest and loudest then of all\n      I seem to hear the Judge\u2019s call:\u2014\n   \u201cWhere art thou, fallen man? come forth, and be thou tried.\u201d\n\n      Trembling before Thee as I stand,\n      Where\u2019er I gaze on either hand\n   The sentence is gone forth, the ground is cursed:\n      Yet mingled with the penal shower\n      Some drops of balm in every bower\n   Steal down like April dews, that softest fall and first.\n\n      If filial and maternal love\n      Memorial of our guilt must prove,\n   If sinful babes in sorrow must be born,\n      Yet, to assuage her sharpest throes,\n      The faithful mother surely knows,\n   This was the way Thou cam\u2019st to save the world forlorn.\n\n      If bless\u00e8d wedlock may not bless\n      Without some tinge of bitterness\n   To dash her cup of joy, since Eden lost,\n      Chaining to earth with strong desire\n      Hearts that would highest else aspire,\n   And o\u2019er the tenderer sex usurping ever most;\n\n      Yet by the light of Christian lore\n      \u2019Tis blind Idolatry no more,\n   But a sweet help and pattern of true love,\n      Showing how best the soul may cling\n      To her immortal Spouse and King,\n   How He should rule, and she with full desire approve.\n\n      If niggard Earth her treasures hide,\n      To all but labouring hands denied,\n   Lavish of thorns and worthless weeds alone,\n      The doom is half in mercy given,\n      To train us in our way to Heaven,\n   And show our lagging souls how glory must be won.\n\n      If on the sinner\u2019s outward frame\n      God hath impressed His mark of blame,\n   And e\u2019en our bodies shrink at touch of light,\n      Yet mercy hath not left us bare:\n      The very weeds we daily wear\n   Are to Faith\u2019s eye a pledge of God\u2019s forgiving might.\n\n      And oh! if yet one arrow more,\n      The sharpest of the Almighty\u2019s store,\n   Tremble upon the string\u2014a sinner\u2019s death\u2014\n      Art Thou not by to soothe and save,\n      To lay us gently in the grave,\n   To close the weary eye and hush the parting breath?\n\n      Therefore in sight of man bereft\n      The happy garden still was left;\n   The fiery sword that guarded, showed it too;\n      Turning all ways, the world to teach,\n      That though as yet beyond our reach,\n   Still in its place the tree of life and glory grew.\n\n\n\nQuinquagesima Sunday.\n\n\n    I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a\n    covenant between Me and the earth.  _Genesis_ ix. 13.\n\n   SWEET Dove! the softest, steadiest plume,\n      In all the sunbright sky,\n   Brightening in ever-changeful bloom\n      As breezes change on high;\u2014\n\n   Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth,\n      \u201cLong sought, and lately won,\u201d\n   Blessed increase of reviving Earth,\n      When first it felt the Sun;\u2014\n\n   Sweet Rainbow! pride of summer days,\n      High set at Heaven\u2019s command,\n   Though into drear and dusky haze\n      Thou melt on either hand;\u2014\n\n   Dear tokens of a pardoning God,\n      We hail ye, one and all,\n   As when our fathers walked abroad,\n      Freed from their twelvemonth\u2019s thrall.\n\n   How joyful from the imprisoning ark\n      On the green earth they spring!\n   Not blither, after showers, the lark\n      Mounts up with glistening wing.\n\n   So home-bound sailors spring to shore,\n      Two oceans safely past;\n   So happy souls, when life is o\u2019er,\n      Plunge in this empyreal vast.\n\n   What wins their first and fondest gaze\n      In all the blissful field,\n   And keeps it through a thousand days?\n      Love face to face revealed:\n\n   Love imaged in that cordial look\n      Our Lord in Eden bends\n   On souls that sin and earth forsook\n      In time to die His friends.\n\n   And what most welcome and serene\n      Dawns on the Patriarch\u2019s eye,\n   In all the emerging hills so green,\n      In all the brightening sky?\n\n   What but the gentle rainbow\u2019s gleam,\n      Soothing the wearied sight,\n   That cannot bear the solar beam,\n      With soft undazzling light?\n\n   Lord, if our fathers turned to Thee\n      With such adoring gaze,\n   Wondering frail man Thy light should see\n      Without Thy scorching blaze;\n\n   Where is our love, and where our hearts,\n      We who have seen Thy Son,\n   Have tried Thy Spirit\u2019s winning arts,\n      And yet we are not won?\n\n   The Son of God in radiance beamed\n      Too bright for us to scan,\n   But we may face the rays that streamed\n      From the mild Son of Man.\n\n   There, parted into rainbow hues,\n      In sweet harmonious strife\n   We see celestial love diffuse\n      Its light o\u2019er Jesus\u2019 life.\n\n   God, by His bow, vouchsafes to write\n      This truth in Heaven above:\n   As every lovely hue is Light,\n      So every grace is Love.\n\n\n\nAsh Wednesday.\n\n\n    When thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou\n    appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret.\n    _St. Matthew_ vi. 17, 18.\n\n   \u201cYES\u2014deep within and deeper yet\n      The rankling shaft of conscience hide,\n   Quick let the swelling eye forget\n      The tears that in the heart abide.\n   Calm be the voice, the aspect bold,\n      No shuddering pass o\u2019er lip or brow,\n   For why should Innocence be told\n      The pangs that guilty spirits bow?\n\n   \u201cThe loving eye that watches thine\n      Close as the air that wraps thee round\u2014\n   Why in thy sorrow should it pine,\n      Since never of thy sin it found?\n   And wherefore should the heathen see\n      What chains of darkness thee enslave,\n   And mocking say, \u2018Lo, this is he\n      Who owned a God that could not save\u2019?\u201d\n\n   Thus oft the mourner\u2019s wayward heart\n      Tempts him to hide his grief and die,\n   Too feeble for Confession\u2019s smart,\n      Too proud to bear a pitying eye;\n   How sweet, in that dark hour, to fall\n      On bosoms waiting to receive\n   Our sighs, and gently whisper all!\n      They love us\u2014will not God forgive?\n\n   Else let us keep our fast within,\n      Till Heaven and we are quite alone,\n   Then let the grief, the shame, the sin,\n      Before the mercy-seat be thrown.\n   Between the porch and altar weep,\n      Unworthy of the holiest place,\n   Yet hoping near the shrine to keep\n      One lowly cell in sight of grace.\n\n   Nor fear lest sympathy should fail\u2014\n      Hast thou not seen, in night hours drear,\n   When racking thoughts the heart assail,\n      The glimmering stars by turns appear,\n   And from the eternal house above\n      With silent news of mercy steal?\n   So Angels pause on tasks of love,\n      To look where sorrowing sinners kneel.\n\n   Or if no Angel pass that way,\n      He who in secret sees, perchance\n   May bid His own heart-warming ray\n      Toward thee stream with kindlier glance,\n   As when upon His drooping head\n      His Father\u2019s light was poured from Heaven,\n   What time, unsheltered and unfed,\n      Far in the wild His steps were driven.\n\n   High thoughts were with Him in that hour,\n      Untold, unspeakable on earth\u2014\n   And who can stay the soaring power\n      Of spirits weaned from worldly mirth,\n   While far beyond the sound of praise\n      With upward eye they float serene,\n   And learn to bear their Saviour\u2019s blaze\n      When Judgment shall undraw the screen?\n\n\n\nFirst Sunday in Lent.\n\n\n    Haste thee, escape thither: for I cannot do any thing till thou be\n    come thither.  Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.\n    _Genesis_ xix. 22.\n\n   \u201cANGEL of wrath! why linger in mid-air,\n      While the devoted city\u2019s cry\n   Louder and louder swells? and canst thou spare,\n      Thy full-charged vial standing by?\u201d\n   Thus, with stern voice, unsparing Justice pleads:\n      He hears her not\u2014with softened gaze\n   His eye is following where sweet Mercy leads,\n   And till she give the sign, his fury stays.\n\n   Guided by her, along the mountain road,\n      Far through the twilight of the morn,\n   With hurried footsteps from the accursed abode\n      He sees the holy household borne;\n   Angels, or more, on either hand are nigh,\n      To speed them o\u2019er the tempting plain,\n   Lingering in heart, and with frail sidelong eye\n   Seeking how near they may unharmed remain.\n\n   \u201cAh! wherefore gleam those upland slopes so fair?\n      And why, through every woodland arch,\n   Swells yon bright vale, as Eden rich and rare,\n      Where Jordan winds his stately march;\n   If all must be forsaken, ruined all,\n      If God have planted but to burn?\u2014\n   Surely not yet the avenging shower will fall,\n   Though to my home for one last look I turn.\u201d\n\n   Thus while they waver, surely long ago\n      They had provoked the withering blast,\n   But that the merciful Avengers know\n      Their frailty well, and hold them fast.\n   \u201cHaste, for thy life escape, nor look behind\u201d\u2014\n      Ever in thrilling sounds like these\n   They check the wandering eye, severely kind,\n   Nor let the sinner lose his soul at ease.\n\n   And when, o\u2019erwearied with the steep ascent,\n      We for a nearer refuge crave,\n   One little spot of ground in mercy lent,\n      One hour of home before the grave,\n   Oft in His pity o\u2019er His children weak,\n      His hand withdraws the penal fire,\n   And where we fondly cling, forbears to wreak\n   Full vengeance, till our hearts are weaned entire.\n\n   Thus, by the merits of one righteous man,\n      The Church, our Zoar, shall abide,\n   Till she abuse, so sore, her lengthened span,\n      E\u2019en Mercy\u2019s self her face must hide.\n   Then, onward yet a step, thou hard-won soul;\n      Though in the Church thou know thy place,\n   The mountain farther lies\u2014there seek thy goal,\n   There breathe at large, o\u2019erpast thy dangerous race.\n\n   Sweet is the smile of home; the mutual look\n      When hearts are of each other sure;\n   Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook,\n      The haunt of all affections pure;\n   Yet in the world e\u2019en these abide, and we\n      Above the world our calling boast;\n   Once gain the mountain-top, and thou art free:\n   Till then, who rest, presume; who turn to look, are lost.\n\n\n\nSecond Sunday in Lent.\n\n\n    And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great\n    and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, Bless me, even me\n    also, O my father.  _Genesis_ xxvii. 34.  (Compare _Hebrews_ xii. 17.\n    He found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with\n    tears.)\n\n   \u201cAND is there in God\u2019s world so drear a place\n      Where the loud bitter cry is raised in vain?\n   Where tears of penance come too late for grace,\n      As on the uprooted flower the genial rain?\u201d\n\n   \u2019Tis even so: the sovereign Lord of souls\n      Stores in the dungeon of His boundless realm\n   Each bolt that o\u2019er the sinner vainly rolls,\n      With gathered wrath the reprobate to whelm.\n\n   Will the storm hear the sailor\u2019s piteous cry,\n      Taught so mistrust, too late, the tempting wave,\n   When all around he sees but sea and sky,\n      A God in anger, a self-chosen grave?\n\n   Or will the thorns, that strew intemperance\u2019 bed,\n      Turn with a wish to down? will late remorse\n   Recall the shaft the murderer\u2019s hand has sped,\n      Or from the guiltless bosom turn its course?\n\n   Then may the unbodied soul in safety fleet\n      Through the dark curtains of the world above,\n   Fresh from the stain of crime; nor fear to meet\n      The God whom here she would not learn to love;\n\n   Then is there hope for such as die unblest,\n      That angel wings may waft them to the shore,\n   Nor need the unready virgin strike her breast,\n      Nor wait desponding round the bridegroom\u2019s door.\n\n   But where is then the stay of contrite hearts?\n      Of old they leaned on Thy eternal word,\n   But with the sinner\u2019s fear their hope departs,\n      Fast linked as Thy great Name to Thee, O Lord:\n\n   That Name, by which Thy faithful oath is past,\n      That we should endless be, for joy or woe:\u2014\n   And if the treasures of Thy wrath could waste,\n      Thy lovers must their promised Heaven forego.\n\n   But ask of elder days, earth\u2019s vernal hour,\n      When in familiar talk God\u2019s voice was heard,\n   When at the Patriarch\u2019s call the fiery shower\n      Propitious o\u2019er the turf-built shrine appeared.\n\n   Watch by our father Isaac\u2019s pastoral door\u2014\n      The birthright sold, the blessing lost and won;\n   Tell, Heaven has wrath that can relent no more;\n      The Grave, dark deeds that cannot be undone.\n\n   We barter life for pottage; sell true bliss\n      For wealth or power, for pleasure or renown;\n   Thus, Esau-like, our Father\u2019s blessing miss,\n      Then wash with fruitless tears our faded crown.\n\n   Our faded crown, despised and flung aside,\n      Shall on some brother\u2019s brow immortal bloom;\n   No partial hand the blessing may misguide,\n      No flattering fancy change our Monarch\u2019s doom:\n\n   His righteous doom, that meek true-hearted Love\n      The everlasting birthright should receive,\n   The softest dews drop on her from above,\n      The richest green her mountain garland weave:\n\n   Her brethren, mightiest, wisest, eldest-born,\n      Bow to her sway, and move at her behest;\n   Isaac\u2019s fond blessing may not fall on scorn,\n      Nor Balaam\u2019s curse on Love, which God hath blest.\n\n\n\nThird Sunday in Lent.\n\n\n    When a strong man armed keepeth his place, his goods are in peace;\n    but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he\n    taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his\n    spoils.  _St. Luke_ xi. 21, 22.\n\n         SEE Lucifer like lightning fall,\n            Dashed from his throne of pride;\n         While, answering Thy victorious call,\n            The Saints his spoils divide;\n      This world of Thine, by him usurped too long,\n   Now opening all her stores to heal Thy servants\u2019 wrong.\n\n         So when the first-born of Thy foes\n            Dead in the darkness lay,\n         When Thy redeemed at midnight rose\n            And cast their bonds away,\n      The orphaned realm threw wide her gates, and told\n   Into freed Israel\u2019s lap her jewels and her gold.\n\n         And when their wondrous march was o\u2019er,\n            And they had won their homes,\n         Where Abraham fed his flock of yore,\n            Among their fathers\u2019 tombs;\u2014\n      A land that drinks the rain of Heaven at will,\n   Whose waters kiss the feet of many a vine-clad hill;\u2014\n\n         Oft as they watched, at thoughtful eve,\n            A gale from bowers of balm\n         Sweep o\u2019er the billowy corn, and heave\n            The tresses of the palm,\n      Just as the lingering Sun had touched with gold,\n   Far o\u2019er the cedar shade, some tower of giants old;\n\n            It was a fearful joy, I ween,\n         To trace the Heathen\u2019s toil,\n            The limpid wells, the orchards green,\n         Left ready for the spoil,\n      The household stores untouched, the roses bright\n   Wreathed o\u2019er the cottage walls in garlands of delight.\n\n         And now another Canaan yields\n            To Thine all-conquering ark:\u2014\n         Fly from the \u201cold poetic\u201d fields,\n            Ye Paynim shadows dark!\n      Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays,\n   Lo! here the \u201cunknown God\u201d of thy unconscious praise.\n\n         The olive-wreath, the ivied wand,\n            \u201cThe sword in myrtles drest,\u201d\n         Each legend of the shadowy strand\n            Now wakes a vision blest;\n      As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven,\n   So thoughts beyond their thought to those high Bards were given.\n\n         And these are ours: Thy partial grace\n            The tempting treasure lends:\n         These relies of a guilty race\n            Are forfeit to Thy friends;\n      What seemed an idol hymn, now breathes of Thee,\n   Tuned by Faith\u2019s ear to some celestial melody.\n\n         There\u2019s not a strain to Memory dear,\n            Nor flower in classic grove,\n         There\u2019s not a sweet note warbled here,\n            But minds us of Thy Love.\n      O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes,\n   There is no light but Thine: with Thee all beauty glows.\n\n\n\nFourth Sunday in Lent.\n\n\n    Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother; and he\n    sought where to weep, and he entered into his chamber and wept there.\n    _Genesis_ xliii. 30.\n\n    There stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his\n    brethren.  _Genesis_ xlv. 1.\n\n   WHEN Nature tries her finest touch,\n      Weaving her vernal wreath,\n   Mark ye, how close she veils her round,\n   Not to be traced by sight or sound,\n      Nor soiled by ruder breath?\n\n   Who ever saw the earliest rose\n      First open her sweet breast?\n   Or, when the summer sun goes down,\n   The first soft star in evening\u2019s crown\n      Light up her gleaming crest?\n\n   Fondly we seek the dawning bloom\n      On features wan and fair,\n   The gazing eye no change can trace,\n   But look away a little space,\n      Then turn, and lo! \u2019tis there.\n\n   But there\u2019s a sweeter flower than e\u2019er\n      Blushed on the rosy spray\u2014\n   A brighter star, a richer bloom\n   Than e\u2019er did western heaven illume\n      At close of summer day.\n\n   \u2019Tis Love, the last best gift of Heaven;\n      Love gentle, holy, pure;\n   But tenderer than a dove\u2019s soft eye,\n   The searching sun, the open sky,\n      She never could endure.\n\n   E\u2019en human Love will shrink from sight\n      Here in the coarse rude earth:\n   How then should rash intruding glance\n   Break in upon _her_ sacred trance\n      Who boasts a heavenly birth?\n\n   So still and secret is her growth,\n      Ever the truest heart,\n   Where deepest strikes her kindly root\n   For hope or joy, for flower or fruit,\n      Least knows its happy part.\n\n   God only, and good angels, look\n      Behind the blissful screen\u2014\n   As when, triumphant o\u2019er His woes,\n   The Son of God by moonlight rose,\n      By all but Heaven unseen:\n\n   As when the holy Maid beheld\n      Her risen Son and Lord:\n   Thought has not colours half so fair\n   That she to paint that hour may dare,\n      In silence best adored.\n\n   The gracious Dove, that brought from Heaven\n      The earnest of our bliss,\n   Of many a chosen witness telling,\n   On many a happy vision dwelling,\n      Sings not a note of this.\n\n   So, truest image of the Christ,\n      Old Israel\u2019s long-lost son,\n   What time, with sweet forgiving cheer,\n   He called his conscious brethren near,\n      Would weep with them alone.\n\n   He could not trust his melting soul\n      But in his Maker\u2019s sight\u2014\n   Then why should gentle hearts and true\n   Bare to the rude world\u2019s withering view\n      Their treasure of delight!\n\n   No\u2014let the dainty rose awhile\n      Her bashful fragrance hide\u2014\n   Rend not her silken veil too soon,\n   But leave her, in her own soft noon,\n      To flourish and abide.\n\n\n\nFifth Sunday in Lent.\n\n\n    And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why\n    the bush is not burnt.  _Exodus_ iii. 3.\n\n   THE historic Muse, from age to age,\n   Through many a waste heart-sickening page\n      Hath traced the works of Man:\n   But a celestial call to-day\n   Stays her, like Moses, on her way,\n      The works of God to scan.\n\n   Far seen across the sandy wild,\n   Where, like a solitary child,\n      He thoughtless roamed and free,\n   One towering thorn was wrapt in flame\u2014\n   Bright without blaze it went and came:\n      Who would not turn and see?\n\n   Along the mountain ledges green\n   The scattered sheep at will may glean\n      The Desert\u2019s spicy stores:\n   The while, with undivided heart,\n   The shepherd talks with God apart,\n      And, as he talks, adores.\n\n   Ye too, who tend Christ\u2019s wildering flock,\n   Well may ye gather round the rock\n      That once was Sion\u2019s hill:\n   To watch the fire upon the mount\n   Still blazing, like the solar fount,\n      Yet unconsuming still.\n\n   Caught from that blaze by wrath Divine,\n   Lost branches of the once-loved vine,\n      Now withered, spent, and sere,\n   See Israel\u2019s sons, like glowing brands,\n   Tossed wildly o\u2019er a thousand lands\n      For twice a thousand year.\n\n   God will not quench nor slay them quite,\n   But lifts them like a beacon-light\n      The apostate Church to scare;\n   Or like pale ghosts that darkling roam,\n   Hovering around their ancient home,\n      But find no refuge there.\n\n   Ye bless\u00e8d Angels! if of you\n   There be, who love the ways to view\n      Of Kings and Kingdoms here;\n   (And sure, \u2019tis worth an Angel\u2019s gaze,\n   To see, throughout that dreary maze,\n      God teaching love and fear:)\n\n   Oh say, in all the bleak expanse\n   Is there a spot to win your glance,\n      So bright, so dark as this?\n   A hopeless faith, a homeless race,\n   Yet seeking the most holy place,\n      And owning the true bliss!\n\n   Salted with fire they seem, to show\n   How spirits lost in endless woe\n      May undecaying live.\n   Oh, sickening thought! yet hold it fast\n   Long as this glittering world shall last,\n      Or sin at heart survive.\n\n   And hark! amid the flashing fire,\n   Mingling with tones of fear and ire,\n      Soft Mercy\u2019s undersong\u2014\n   \u2019Tis Abraham\u2019s God who speaks so loud,\n   His people\u2019s cries have pierced the cloud,\n      He sees, He sees their wrong;\n\n   He is come down to break their chain;\n   Though nevermore on Sion\u2019s fane\n      His visible ensign wave;\n   \u2019Tis Sion, wheresoe\u2019er they dwell,\n   Who, with His own true Israel,\n      Shall own Him strong to save.\n\n   He shall redeem them one by one,\n   Where\u2019er the world-encircling sun\n      Shall see them meekly kneel:\n   All that He asks on Israel\u2019s part,\n   Is only that the captive heart\n      Its woe and burthen feel.\n\n   Gentiles! with fixed yet awful eye\n   Turn ye this page of mystery,\n      Nor slight the warning sound:\n   \u201cPut off thy shoes from off thy feet\u2014\n   The place where man his God shall meet,\n      Be sure, is holy ground.\u201d\n\n\n\nPalm Sunday.\n\n\n    And He answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should\n    hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.  _St. Luke_\n    xix. 40.\n\n   YE whose hearts are beating high\n   With the pulse of Poesy,\n   Heirs of more than royal race,\n   Framed by Heaven\u2019s peculiar grace,\n   God\u2019s own work to do on earth,\n      (If the word be not too bold,)\n   Giving virtue a new birth,\n      And a life that ne\u2019er grows old\u2014\n\n   Sovereign masters of all hearts!\n   Know ye, who hath set your parts?\n   He who gave you breath to sing,\n   By whose strength ye sweep the string,\n   He hath chosen you, to lead\n      His Hosannas here below;\u2014\n   Mount, and claim your glorious meed;\n      Linger not with sin and woe.\n\n   But if ye should hold your peace,\n   Deem not that the song would cease\u2014\n   Angels round His glory-throne,\n   Stars, His guiding hand that own,\n   Flowers, that grow beneath our feet,\n      Stones in earth\u2019s dark womb that rest,\n   High and low in choir shall meet,\n      Ere His Name shall be unblest.\n\n   Lord, by every minstrel tongue\n   Be Thy praise so duly sung,\n   That Thine angels\u2019 harps may ne\u2019er\n   Fail to find fit echoing here:\n   We the while, of meaner birth,\n      Who in that divinest spell\n   Dare not hope to join on earth,\n      Give us grace to listen well.\n\n   But should thankless silence seal\n   Lips that might half Heaven reveal,\n   Should bards in idol-hymns profane\n   The sacred soul-enthralling strain,\n   (As in this bad world below\n      Noblest things find vilest using,)\n   Then, Thy power and mercy show,\n      In vile things noble breath infusing;\n\n   Then waken into sound divine\n   The very pavement of Thy shrine,\n   Till we, like Heaven\u2019s star-sprinkled floor,\n   Faintly give back what we adore:\n   Childlike though the voices be,\n      And untunable the parts,\n   Thou wilt own the minstrelsy\n      If it flow from childlike hearts.\n\n\n\nMonday before Easter.\n\n\n    Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and\n    Israel acknowledge us not.  _Isaiah_ lxiii. 16.\n\n   \u201cFATHER to me thou art and mother dear,\n      And brother too, kind husband of my heart\u201d\u2014\n   So speaks Andromache in boding fear,\n      Ere from her last embrace her hero part\u2014\n   So evermore, by Faith\u2019s undying glow,\n   We own the Crucified in weal or woe.\n\n   Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home,\n      This fragrance of our old paternal fields\n   May be forgotten; and the time may come\n      When the babe\u2019s kiss no sense of pleasure yields\n   E\u2019en to the doting mother: but Thine own\n   Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone.\n\n   There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs,\n      None loves them best\u2014O vain and selfish sigh!\n   Out of the bosom of His love He spares\u2014\n      The Father spares the Son, for thee to die:\n   For thee He died\u2014for thee He lives again:\n   O\u2019er thee He watches in His boundless reign.\n\n   Thou art as much His care, as if beside\n      Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth:\n   Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide\n      To light up worlds, or wake an insect\u2019s mirth:\n   They shine and shine with unexhausted store\u2014\n   Thou art thy Saviour\u2019s darling\u2014seek no more.\n\n   On thee and thine, thy warfare and thine end,\n      E\u2019en in His hour of agony He thought,\n   When, ere the final pang His soul should rend,\n      The ransomed spirits one by one were brought\n   To His mind\u2019s eye\u2014two silent nights and days\n   In calmness for His far-seen hour He stays.\n\n   Ye vaulted cells, where martyred seers of old\n      Far in the rocky walls of Sion sleep,\n   Green terraces and arch\u00e8d fountains cold,\n      Where lies the cypress shade so still and deep,\n   Dear sacred haunts of glory and of woe,\n   Help us, one hour, to trace His musings high and low:\n\n   One heart-ennobling hour!  It may not be:\n      The unearthly thoughts have passed from earth away,\n   And fast as evening sunbeams from the sea\n      Thy footsteps all in Sion\u2019s deep decay\n   Were blotted from the holy ground: yet dear\n   Is every stone of hers; for Thou want surely here.\n\n   There is a spot within this sacred dale\n      That felt Thee kneeling\u2014touched Thy prostrate brow:\n   One Angel knows it.  O might prayer avail\n      To win that knowledge! sure each holy vow\n   Less quickly from the unstable soul would fade,\n   Offered where Christ in agony was laid.\n\n   Might tear of ours once mingle with the blood\n      That from His aching brow by moonlight fell,\n   Over the mournful joy our thoughts would brood,\n      Till they had framed within a guardian spell\n   To chase repining fancies, as they rise,\n   Like birds of evil wing, to mar our sacrifice.\n\n   So dreams the heart self-flattering, fondly dreams;\u2014\n      Else wherefore, when the bitter waves o\u2019erflow,\n   Miss we the light, Gethsemane, that streams\n      From thy dear name, where in His page of woe\n   It shines, a pale kind star in winter\u2019s sky?\n   Who vainly reads it there, in vain had seen Him die.\n\n\n\nTuesday before Easter.\n\n\n    They gave Him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but He received in\n    not.  _St. Mark_ xv. 23.\n\n   \u201cFILL high the bowl, and spice it well, and pour\n   The dews oblivious: for the Cross is sharp,\n      The Cross is sharp, and He\n      Is tenderer than a lamb.\n\n   \u201cHe wept by Lazarus\u2019 grave\u2014how will He bear\n   This bed of anguish? and His pale weak form\n      Is worn with many a watch\n      Of sorrow and unrest.\n\n   \u201cHis sweat last night was as great drops of blood,\n   And the sad burthen pressed Him so to earth,\n      The very torturers paused\n      To help Him on His way.\n\n   \u201cFill high the bowl, benumb His aching sense\n   With medicined sleep.\u201d\u2014O awful in Thy woe!\n      The parching thirst of death\n      Is on Thee, and Thou triest\n\n   The slumb\u2019rous potion bland, and wilt not drink:\n   Not sullen, nor in scorn, like haughty man\n      With suicidal hand\n      Putting his solace by:\n\n   But as at first Thine all-pervading look\n   Saw from Thy Father\u2019s bosom to the abyss\n      Measuring in calm presage\n      The infinite descent;\n\n   So to the end, though now of mortal pangs\n   Made heir, and emptied of Thy glory, awhile,\n      With unaverted eye\n      Thou meetest all the storm.\n\n   Thou wilt feel all, that Thou mayst pity all;\n   And rather wouldst Thou wreathe with strong pain,\n      Than overcloud Thy soul,\n      So clear in agony,\n\n   Or lose one glimpse of Heaven before the time\n   O most entire and perfect sacrifice,\n      Renewed in every pulse\n      That on the tedious Cross\n\n   Told the long hours of death, as, one by one,\n   The life-strings of that tender heart gave way;\n      E\u2019en sinners, taught by Thee,\n      Look Sorrow in the face,\n\n   And bid her freely welcome, unbeguiled\n   By false kind solaces, and spells of earth:\u2014\n      And yet not all unsoothed;\n      For when was Joy so dear,\n\n   As the deep calm that breathed, \u201c_Father_, _forgive_,\u201d\n   Or, \u201c_Be with Me in Paradise to-day_?\u201d\n      And, though the strife be sore,\n      Yet in His parting breath\n\n   Love masters Agony; the soul that seemed\n   Forsaken, feels her present God again,\n      And in her Father\u2019s arms\n      Contented dies away.\n\n\n\nWednesday before Easter.\n\n\n    Saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me;\n    nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.  _St. Luke_ xxii. 42.\n\n   O LORD my God, do thou Thy holy will\u2014\n      I will lie still\u2014\n   I will not stir, lest I forsake Thine arm,\n      And break the charm\n   Which lulls me, clinging to my Father\u2019s breast,\n      In perfect rest.\n\n   Wild fancy, peace! thou must not me beguile\n      With thy false smile:\n   I know thy flatteries and thy cheating ways;\n      Be silent, Praise,\n   Blind guide with siren voice, and blinding all\n      That hear thy call.\n\n   Come, Self-devotion, high and pure,\n   Thoughts that in thankfulness endure,\n   Though dearest hopes are faithless found,\n   And dearest hearts are bursting round.\n   Come, Resignation, spirit meek,\n   And let me kiss thy placid cheek,\n   And read in thy pale eye serene\n   Their blessing, who by faith can wean\n   Their hearts from sense, and learn to love\n   God only, and the joys above.\n\n   They say, who know the life divine,\n   And upward gaze with eagle eyne,\n   That by each golden crown on high,\n   Rich with celestial jewelry,\n   Which for our Lord\u2019s redeemed is set,\n   There hangs a radiant coronet,\n   All gemmed with pure and living light,\n   Too dazzling for a sinner\u2019s sight,\n   Prepared for virgin souls, and them\n   Who seek the martyr\u2019s diadem.\n\n   Nor deem, who to that bliss aspire,\n   Must win their way through blood and fire.\n   The writhings of a wounded heart\n   Are fiercer than a foeman\u2019s dart.\n   Oft in Life\u2019s stillest shade reclining,\n   In Desolation unrepining,\n   Without a hope on earth to find\n   A mirror in an answering mind,\n   Meek souls there are, who little dream\n   Their daily strife an Angel\u2019s theme,\n   Or that the rod they take so calm\n   Shall prove in Heaven a martyr\u2019s palm.\n\n   And there are souls that seem to dwell\n   Above this earth\u2014so rich a spell\n   Floats round their steps, where\u2019er they move,\n   From hopes fulfilled and mutual love.\n   Such, if on high their thoughts are set,\n   Nor in the stream the source forget,\n   If prompt to quit the bliss they know,\n   Following the Lamb where\u2019er He go,\n   By purest pleasures unbeguiled\n   To idolise or wife or child;\n   Such wedded souls our God shall own\n   For faultless virgins round His throne.\n\n   Thus everywhere we find our suffering God,\n      And where He trod\n   May set our steps: the Cross on Calvary\n      Uplifted high\n   Beams on the martyr host, a beacon light\n      In open fight.\n\n   To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart\n      He doth impart\n   The virtue of his midnight agony,\n      When none was nigh,\n   Save God and one good angel, to assuage\n      The tempest\u2019s rage.\n\n   Mortal! if life smile on thee, and thou find\n      All to thy mind,\n   Think, who did once from Heaven to Hell descend,\n      Thee to befriend:\n   So shalt thou dare forego, at His dear call,\n      Thy best, thine all.\n\n   \u201cO Father! not My will, but Thine be done\u201d\u2014\n      So spake the Son.\n   Be this our charm, mellowing Earth\u2019s ruder noise\n      Of griefs and joys:\n   That we may cling for ever to Thy breast\n      In perfect rest!\n\n\n\nThursday before Easter.\n\n\n    As the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and\n    I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore\n    understand the matter, and consider the vision.  _Daniel_ ix. 23.\n\n      \u201cO HOLY mountain of my God,\n         How do thy towers in ruin lie,\n      How art thou riven and strewn abroad,\n         Under the rude and wasteful sky!\u201d\n      \u2019Twas thus upon his fasting-day\n      The \u201cMan of Loves\u201d was fain to pray,\n      His lattice open toward his darling west,\n   Mourning the ruined home he still must love the best.\n\n      Oh! for a love like Daniel\u2019s now,\n         To wing to Heaven but one strong prayer\n      For GOD\u2019S new Israel, sunk as low,\n         Yet flourishing to sight as fair,\n      As Sion in her height of pride,\n      With queens for handmaids at her side,\n      With kings her nursing-fathers, thron\u00e8d high,\n   And compassed with the world\u2019s too tempting blazonry.\n\n      \u2019Tis true, nor winter stays thy growth,\n         Nor torrid summer\u2019s sickly smile;\n      The flashing billows of the south\n         Break not upon so lone an isle,\n      But thou, rich vine, art grafted there,\n      The fruit of death or life to bear,\n      Yielding a surer witness every day,\n   To thine Almighty Author and His steadfast sway.\n\n      Oh! grief to think, that grapes of gall\n         Should cluster round thine healthiest shoot!\n      God\u2019s herald prove a heartless thrall,\n         Who, if he dared, would fain be mute!\n      E\u2019en such is this bad world we see,\n      Which self-condemned in owning Thee,\n      Yet dares not open farewell of Thee take,\n   For very pride, and her high-boasted Reason\u2019s sake.\n\n      What do we then? if far and wide\n         Men kneel to CHRIST, the pure and meek,\n      Yet rage with passion, swell with pride,\n         Have we not still our faith to seek?\n      Nay\u2014but in steadfast humbleness\n      Kneel on to Him, who loves to bless\n      The prayer that waits for him; and trembling strive\n   To keep the lingering flame in thine own breast alive.\n\n      Dark frowned the future e\u2019en on him,\n         The loving and belov\u00e8d Seer,\n      What time he saw, through shadows dim,\n         The boundary of th\u2019 eternal year;\n      He only of the sons of men\n      Named to be heir of glory then.\n      Else had it bruised too sore his tender heart\n   To see GOD\u2019S ransomed world in wrath and flame depart\n\n      Then look no more: or closer watch\n         Thy course in Earth\u2019s bewildering ways,\n      For every glimpse thine eye can catch\n         Of what shall be in those dread days:\n      So when th\u2019 Archangel\u2019s word is spoken,\n      And Death\u2019s deep trance for ever broken,\n      In mercy thou mayst feel the heavenly hand,\n   And in thy lot unharmed before thy Savour stand.\n\n\n\nGood Friday.\n\n\n    He is despised and rejected of men.  _Isaiah_ liii. 3.\n\n      IS it not strange, the darkest hour\n         That ever dawned on sinful earth\n      Should touch the heart with softer power\n         For comfort than an angel\u2019s mirth?\n   That to the Cross the mourner\u2019s eye should turn\n   Sooner than where the stars of Christmas burn?\n\n      Sooner than where the Easter sun\n         Shines glorious on yon open grave,\n      And to and fro the tidings run,\n         \u201cWho died to heal, is risen to save?\u201d\n   Sooner than where upon the Saviour\u2019s friends\n   The very Comforter in light and love descends?\n\n      Yet so it is: for duly there\n         The bitter herbs of earth are set,\n      Till tempered by the Saviour\u2019s prayer,\n         And with the Saviour\u2019s life-blood wet,\n   They turn to sweetness, and drop holy balm,\n   Soft as imprisoned martyr\u2019s deathbed calm.\n\n      All turn to sweet\u2014but most of all\n         That bitterest to the lip of pride,\n      When hopes presumptuous fade and fall,\n         Or Friendship scorns us, duly tried,\n   Or Love, the flower that closes up for fear\n   When rude and selfish spirits breathe too near.\n\n      Then like a long-forgotten strain\n         Comes sweeping o\u2019er the heart forlorn\n      What sunshine hours had taught in vain\n         Of JESUS suffering shame and scorn,\n   As in all lowly hearts he suffers still,\n   While we triumphant ride and have the world at will.\n\n      His pierc\u00e8d hands in vain would hide\n         His face from rude reproachful gaze,\n      His ears are open to abide\n         The wildest storm the tongue can raise,\n   He who with one rough word, some early day,\n   Their idol world and them shall sweep for aye away.\n\n      But we by Fancy may assuage\n         The festering sore by Fancy made,\n      Down in some lonely hermitage\n         Like wounded pilgrims safely laid,\n   Where gentlest breezes whisper souls distressed,\n   That Love yet lives, and Patience shall find rest.\n\n      O! shame beyond the bitterest thought\n         That evil spirit ever framed,\n      That sinners know what Jesus wrought,\n         Yet feel their haughty hearts untamed\u2014\n   That souls in refuge, holding by the Cross,\n   Should wince and fret at this world\u2019s little loss.\n\n      Lord of my heart, by Thy last cry,\n         Let not Thy blood on earth be spent\u2014\n      Lo, at Thy feet I fainting lie,\n         Mine eyes upon Thy wounds are bent,\n   Upon Thy streaming wounds my weary eyes\n   Wait like the parch\u00e8d earth on April skies.\n\n      Wash me, and dry these bitter tears,\n         O let my heart no further roam,\n      \u2019Tis Thine by vows, and hopes, and fears.\n         Long since\u2014O call Thy wanderer home;\n   To that dear home, safe in Thy wounded side,\n   Where only broken hearts their sin and shame may hide.\n\n\n\nEaster Eve.\n\n\n    As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy\n    prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.  _Zechariah_ ix. 11.\n\n      AT length the worst is o\u2019er, and Thou art laid\n         Deep in Thy darksome bed;\n      All still and cold beneath yon dreary stone\n         Thy sacred form is gone;\n      Around those lips where power and mercy hung,\n         The dews of deaths have clung;\n      The dull earth o\u2019er Thee, and Thy foes around,\n   Thou sleep\u2019st a silent corse, in funeral fetters wound.\n\n      Sleep\u2019st Thou indeed? or is Thy spirit fled,\n         At large among the dead?\n      Whether in Eden bowers Thy welcome voice\n         Wake Abraham to rejoice,\n      Or in some drearier scene Thine eye controls\n         The thronging band of souls;\n      That, as Thy blood won earth, Thine agony\n   Might set the shadowy realm from sin and sorrow free.\n\n      Where\u2019er Thou roam\u2019st, one happy soul, we know,\n         Seen at Thy side in woe,\n      Waits on Thy triumphs\u2014even as all the blest\n         With him and Thee shall rest.\n      Each on his cross; by Thee we hang a while,\n         Watching Thy patient smile,\n      Till we have learned to say, \u201c\u2019Tis justly done,\n   Only in glory, LORD, Thy sinful servant own.\u201d\n\n      Soon wilt Thou take us to Thy tranquil bower\n         To rest one little hour,\n      Till Thine elect are numbered, and the grave\n         Call Thee to come and save:\n      Then on Thy bosom borne shall we descend\n         Again with earth to blend,\n      Earth all refined with bright supernal fires,\n   Tinctured with holy blood, and winged with pure desires.\n\n      Meanwhile with every son and saint of Thine\n         Along the glorious line,\n      Sitting by turns beneath Thy sacred feet\n         We\u2019ll hold communion sweet,\n      Know them by look and voice, and thank them all\n         For helping us in thrall,\n      For words of hope, and bright examples given\n   To show through moonless skies that there is light in Heaven.\n\n      O come that day, when in this restless heart\n         Earth shall resign her part,\n      When in the grave with Thee my limbs shall rest,\n         My soul with Thee be blest!\n      But stay, presumptuous\u2014CHRIST with Thee abides\n         In the rock\u2019s dreary sides:\n      He from this stone will wring Celestial dew\n   If but this prisoner\u2019s heart he faithful found and true.\n\n      When tears are spent, and then art left alone\n         With ghosts of blessings gone,\n      Think thou art taken from the cross, and laid\n         In JESUS\u2019 burial shade;\n      Take Moses\u2019 rod, the rod of prayer, and call\n         Out of the rocky wall\n      The fount of holy blood; and lift on high\n   Thy grovelling soul that feels so desolate and dry.\n\n      Prisoner of Hope thou art\u2014look up and sing\n         In hope of promised spring.\n      As in the pit his father\u2019s darling lay\n         Beside the desert way,\n      And knew not how, but knew his GOD would save\n         E\u2019en from that living grave,\n      So, buried with our LORD, we\u2019ll chose our eyes\n   To the decaying world, till Angels bid us rise.\n\n\n\nEaster Day.\n\n\n    And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth,\n    they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?  He is\n    not here, but is risen.  _St. Luke_ xxiv. 5, 6.\n\n   OH! day of days! shall hearts set free\n   No \u201cminstrel rapture\u201d find for thee?\n   Thou art this Sun of other days,\n   They shine by giving back thy rays:\n\n   Enthron\u00e8d in thy sovereign sphere,\n   Thou shedd\u2019st thy light on all the year;\n   Sundays by thee more glorious break,\n   An Easter Day in every week:\n\n   And week days, following in their train,\n   The fulness of thy blessing gain,\n   Till all, both resting soil employ,\n   Be one Lord\u2019s day of holy joy.\n\n   Then wake, my soul, to high desires,\n   And earlier light thine altar fires:\n   The World some hours is on her way,\n   Nor thinks on thee, thou bless\u00e8d day:\n\n   Or, if she think, it is in scorn:\n   The vernal light of Easter morn\n   To her dark gaze no brighter seems\n   Than Reason\u2019s or the Law\u2019s pale beams.\n\n   \u201cWhere is your Lord?\u201d she scornful asks:\n   \u201cWhere is His hire? we know his tasks;\n   Sons of a King ye boast to be:\n   Let us your crowns and treasures see.\u201d\n\n   We in the words of Truth reply,\n   (An angel brought them from this sky,)\n   \u201cOur crown, our treasure is not here,\n   \u2019Tis stored above the highest sphere:\n\n   \u201cMethinks your wisdom guides amiss,\n   To seek on earth a Christian\u2019s bliss;\n   We watch not now the lifeless stone;\n   Our only Lord is risen and gone.\u201d\n\n   Yet e\u2019en the lifeless stone is dear\n   For thoughts of Him who late lay here;\n   And the base world, now Christ hath died,\n   Ennobled is and glorified.\n\n   No more a charnel-house, to fence\n   The relics of lost innocence,\n   A vault of ruin and decay;\n   Th\u2019 imprisoning stone is rolled away:\n\n   \u2019Tis now a cell, where angels use\n   To come and go with heavenly news,\n   And in the ears of mourners say,\n   \u201cCome, see the place where Jesus lay:\u201d\n\n   \u2019Tis now a fane, where Love can find\n   Christ everywhere embalmed and shined:\n   Aye gathering up memorials sweet,\n   Where\u2019er she sets her duteous feet.\n\n   Oh! joy to Mary first allowed,\n   When roused from weeping o\u2019er His shroud,\n   By His own calm, soul-soothing tone,\n   Breathing her name, as still His own!\n\n   Joy to the faithful Three renewed,\n   As their glad errand they pursued!\n   Happy, who so Christ\u2019s word convey,\n   That he may meet them on their way!\n\n   So is it still: to holy tears,\n   In lonely hours, Christ risen appears:\n   In social hours, who Christ would see\n   Must turn all tasks to Charity.\n\n\n\nMonday in Easter Week.\n\n\n    Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in\n    every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is\n    accepted with Him.  _Acts_ x. 34, 35.\n\n   GO up and watch the new-born rill\n      Just trickling from its mossy bed,\n         Streaking the heath-clad hill\n            With a bright emerald thread.\n\n   Canst thou her bold career foretell,\n      What rocks she shall o\u2019erleap or rend,\n         How far in Ocean\u2019s swell\n            Her freshening billows send?\n\n   Perchance that little brook shall flow\n      The bulwark of some mighty realm,\n         Bear navies to and fro\n            With monarchs at their helm.\n\n   Or canst thou guess, how far away\n      Some sister nymph, beside her urn\n         Reclining night and day,\n            \u2019Mid reeds and mountain fern,\n\n   Nurses her store, with thine to blend\n      When many a moor and glen are past,\n         Then in the wide sea end\n            Their spotless lives at last?\n\n   E\u2019en so, the course of prayer who knows?\n      It springs in silence where it will,\n         Springs out of sight, and flows\n            At first a lonely rill:\n\n   But streams shall meet it by and by\n      From thousand sympathetic hearts,\n         Together swelling high\n            Their chant of many parts.\n\n   Unheard by all but angel ears\n      The good Cornelius knelt alone,\n         Nor dreamed his prayers and tears\n            Would help a world undone.\n\n   The while upon his terraced roof\n      The loved Apostle to his Lord\n         In silent thought aloof\n            For heavenly vision soared.\n\n   Far o\u2019er the glowing western main\n      His wistful brow was upward raised,\n         Where, like an angel\u2019s train,\n            The burnished water blazed.\n\n   The saint beside the ocean prayed,\n      This soldier in his chosen bower,\n         Where all his eye surveyed\n            Seemed sacred in that hour.\n\n   To each unknown his brother\u2019s prayer,\n      Yet brethren true in dearest love\n         Were they\u2014and now they share\n            Fraternal joys above.\n\n   There daily through Christ\u2019s open gate\n      They see the Gentile spirits press,\n         Brightening their high estate\n            With dearer happiness.\n\n   What civic wreath for comrades saved\n      Shone ever with such deathless gleam,\n         Or when did perils braved\n            So sweet to veterans seem?\n\n\n\nTuesday in Easter Week.\n\n\n    And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy,\n    and did run to bring His disciples word.  _St. Matthew_ xxviii. 8.\n\n                              TO THE SNOWDROP.\n\n   THOU first-born of the year\u2019s delight,\n      Pride of the dewy glade,\n   In vernal green and virgin white,\n      Thy vestal robes, arrayed:\n\n   \u2019Tis not because thy drooping form\n      Sinks graceful on its nest,\n   When chilly shades from gathering storm\n      Affright thy tender breast;\n\n   Nor for yon river islet wild\n      Beneath the willow spray,\n   Where, like the ringlets of a child,\n      Thou weav\u2019st thy circle gay;\n\n   \u2019Tis not for these I love thee dear\u2014\n      Thy shy averted smiles\n   To Fancy bode a joyous year,\n      One of Life\u2019s fairy isles.\n\n   They twinkle to the wintry moon,\n      And cheer th\u2019 ungenial day,\n   And tell us, all will glisten soon\n      As green and bright as they.\n\n   Is there a heart that loves the spring,\n      Their witness can refuse?\n   Yet mortals doubt, when angels bring\n      From Heaven their Easter news:\n\n   When holy maids and matrons speak\n      Of Christ\u2019s forsaken bed,\n   And voices, that forbid to seek\n      The hiving \u2019mid the dead,\n\n   And when they say, \u201cTurn, wandering heart,\n      Thy Lord is ris\u2019n indeed,\n   Let Pleasure go, put Care apart,\n      And to His presence speed;\u201d\n\n   We smile in scorn: and yet we know\n      They early sought the tomb,\n   Their hearts, that now so freshly glow,\n      Lost in desponding gloom.\n\n   They who have sought, nor hope to find,\n      Wear not so bright a glance:\n   They, who have won their earthly mind,\n      Lees reverently advance.\n\n   But where in gentle spirits, fear\n      And joy so duly meet,\n   These sure have seen the angels near,\n      And kissed the Saviour\u2019s feet.\n\n   Nor let the Pastor\u2019s thankful eye\n      Their faltering tale disdain,\n   As on their lowly couch they lie,\n      Prisoners of want and pain.\n\n   O guide us, when our faithless hearts\n      From Thee would start aloof,\n   Where Patience her sweet skill imparts\n      Beneath some cottage roof:\n\n   Revive our dying fires, to burn\n      High as her anthems soar,\n   And of our scholars let us learn\n      Our own forgotten lore.\n\n\n\nFirst Sunday after Easter.\n\n\n    Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath\n    separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to\n    Himself?  _Numbers_ xvi. 9.\n\n   FIRST Father of the holy seed,\n   If yet, invoked in hour of need,\n      Thou count me for Thine own\n   Not quite an outcast if I prove,\n   (Thou joy\u2019st in miracles of love),\n      Hear, from Thy mercy-throne!\n\n   Upon Thine altar\u2019s horn of gold\n   Help me to lay my trembling hold,\n      Though stained with Christian gore;\u2014\n   The blood of souls by Thee redeemed,\n   But, while I roved or idly dreamed,\n      Lost to be found no more.\n\n   For oft, when summer leaves were bright,\n   And every flower was bathed in light,\n      In sunshine moments past,\n   My wilful heart would burst away\n   From where the holy shadow lay,\n      Where heaven my lot had cast.\n\n   I thought it scorn with Thee to dwell,\n   A Hermit in a silent cell,\n      While, gaily sweeping by,\n   Wild Fancy blew his bugle strain,\n   And marshalled all his gallant train\n      In the world\u2019s wondering eye.\n\n   I would have joined him\u2014but as oft\n   Thy whispered warnings, kind and soft,\n      My better soul confessed.\n   \u201cMy servant, let the world alone\u2014\n   Safe on the steps of Jesus\u2019 throne\n      Be tranquil and be blest.\u201d\n\n   \u201cSeems it to thee a niggard hand\n   That nearest Heaven has bade thee stand,\n      The ark to touch and bear,\n   With incense of pure heart\u2019s desire\n   To heap the censer\u2019s sacred fire,\n      The snow-white Ephod wear?\u201d\n\n   Why should we crave the worldling\u2019s wreath,\n   On whom the Savour deigned to breathe,\n      To whom His keys were given,\n   Who lead the choir where angels meet,\n   With angels\u2019 food our brethren greet,\n      And pour the drink of Heaven?\n\n   When sorrow all our heart would ask,\n   We need not shun our daily task,\n      And hide ourselves for calm;\n   The herbs we seek to heal our woe\n   Familiar by our pathway grow,\n      Our common air is balm.\n\n   Around each pure domestic shrine\n   Bright flowers of Eden bloom and twine,\n      Our hearths are altars all;\n   The prayers of hungry souls and poor,\n   Like arm\u00e8d angels at the door,\n      Our unseen foes appal.\n\n   Alms all around and hymns within\u2014\n   What evil eye can entrance win\n      Where guards like these abound?\n   If chance some heedless heart should roam,\n   Sure, thought of these will lure it home\n      Ere lost in Folly\u2019s round.\n\n   O joys, that sweetest in decay,\n   Fall not, like withered leaves, away,\n      But with the silent breath\n   Of violets drooping one by one,\n   Soon as their fragrant task is done,\n      Are wafted high in death!\n\n\n\nSecond Sunday after Easter.\n\n\n    He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of\n    the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a\n    trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see Him, but not now; I\n    shall behold Him, but not nigh; there shall come a Star out at Jacob,\n    and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners\n    of Moab, and destroy all the children at Sheth.  _Numbers_ xxiv. 16,\n    17.\n\n      O FOR a sculptor\u2019s hand,\n      That thou might\u2019st take thy stand,\n   Thy wild hair floating on the eastern breeze,\n      Thy tranced yet open gaze\n      Fixed on the desert haze,\n   As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant sees.\n\n      In outline dim and vast\n      Their fearful shadows cast\n   This giant forms of empires on their way\n      To ruin: one by one\n      They tower and they are gone,\n   Yet in the Prophet\u2019s soul the dreams of avarice stay.\n\n      No sun or star so bright\n      In all the world of light\n   That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye:\n      He hears th\u2019 Almighty\u2019s word,\n      He sees the angel\u2019s sword,\n   Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.\n\n      Lo! from you argent field,\n      To him and us revealed,\n   One gentle Star glides down, on earth to dwell.\n      Chained as they are below\n      Our eyes may see it glow,\n   And as it mounts again, may track its brightness well.\n\n      To him it glared afar,\n      A token of wild war,\n   The banner of his Lord\u2019s victorious wrath:\n      But close to us it gleams,\n      Its soothing lustre streams\n   Around our home\u2019s green walls, and on our church-way path.\n\n      We in the tents abide\n      Which he at distance eyed\n   Like goodly cedars by the waters spread,\n      While seven red altar-fires\n      Rose up in wavy spires,\n   Where on the mount he watched his sorceries dark and dread.\n\n      He watched till morning\u2019s ray\n      On lake and meadow lay,\n   And willow-shaded streams that silent sweep\n      Around the bannered lines,\n      Where by their several signs\n   The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep.\n\n      He watched till knowledge came\n      Upon his soul like flame,\n   Not of those magic fires at random caught:\n      But true Prophetic light\n      Flashed o\u2019er him, high and bright,\n   Flashed once, and died away, and left his darkened thought.\n\n      And can he choose but fear,\n      Who feels his GOD so near,\n   That when he fain would curse, his powerless tongue\n      In blessing only moves?\u2014\n      Alas! the world he loves\n   Too close around his heart her tangling veil hath flung.\n\n      Sceptre and Star divine,\n      Who in Thine inmost shrine\n   Hash made us worshippers, O claim Thine own;\n      More than Thy seers we know\u2014\n      O teach our love to grow\n   Up to Thy heavenly light, and reap what Thou hast sown.\n\n\n\nThird Sunday after Easter.\n\n\n    A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come;\n    but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more\n    the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.  _St. John_\n    xvi. 21.\n\n            WELL may I guess and feel\n               Why Autumn should be sad;\n         But vernal airs should sorrow heal,\n               Spring should be gay and glad:\n      Yet as along this violet bank I rove,\n         The languid sweetness seems to choke my breath,\n      I sit me down beside the hazel grove,\n   And sigh, and half could wish my weariness were death.\n\n            Like a bright veering cloud\n               Grey blossoms twinkle there,\n         Warbles around a busy crowd\n               Of larks in purest air.\n      Shame on the heart that dreams of blessings gone,\n         Or wakes the spectral forms of woe and crime,\n      When nature sings of joy and hope alone,\n   Reading her cheerful lesson in her own sweet time.\n\n            Nor let the proud heart say,\n               In her self-torturing hour,\n         The travail pangs must have their way,\n               The aching brow must lower.\n      To us long since the glorious Child is born\n         Our throes should be forgot, or only seem\n      Like a sad vision told for joy at morn,\n   For joy that we have waked and found it but a dream.\n\n            Mysterious to all thought\n               A mother\u2019s prime of bliss,\n         When to her eager lips is brought\n               Her infant\u2019s thrilling kiss.\n      O never shall it set, the sacred light\n         Which dawns that moment on her tender gaze,\n      In the eternal distance blending bright\n   Her darling\u2019s hope and hers, for love and joy and praise.\n\n            No need for her to weep\n               Like Thracian wives of yore,\n         Save when in rapture still and deep\n               Her thankful heart runs o\u2019er.\n      They mourned to trust their treasure on the main,\n         Sure of the storm, unknowing of their guide:\n      Welcome to her the peril and the pain,\n   For well she knows the bonus where they may safely hide.\n\n            She joys that one is born\n               Into a world forgiven,\n         Her Father\u2019s household to adorn,\n               And dwell with her in Heaven.\n      So have I seen, in Spring\u2019s bewitching hour,\n         When the glad Earth is offering all her best,\n      Some gentle maid bend o\u2019er a cherished flower,\n   And wish it worthier on a Parent\u2019s heart to rest.\n\n\n\nFourth Sunday after Easter.\n\n\n    Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go\n    away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but\n    if I depart, I will send Him unto you.  _St. John_ xvi 7.\n\n   MY Saviour, can it ever be\n   That I should gain by losing Thee?\n   The watchful mother tarries nigh,\n   Though sleep have closed her infant\u2019s eye;\n   For should he wake, and find her gone.\n   She knows she could not bear his moan.\n   But I am weaker than a child,\n      And Thou art more than mother dear;\n   Without Thee Heaven were but a wild;\n      How can I live without Thee here!\n\n   \u201c\u2019Tis good for you, that I should go,\n   \u201cYou lingering yet awhile below;\u201d\u2014\n   \u2019Tis Thine own gracious promise, Lord!\n   Thy saints have proved the faithful word,\n   When heaven\u2019s bright boundless avenue\n   Far opened on their eager view,\n   And homeward to Thy Father\u2019s throne,\n      Still lessening, brightening on their sight,\n   Thy shadowy car went soaring on;\n      They tracked Thee up th\u2019 abyss of light.\n\n   Thou bidd\u2019st rejoice; they dare not mourn,\n   But to their home in gladness turn,\n   Their home and God\u2019s, that favoured place,\n   Where still He shines on Abraham\u2019s race,\n   In prayers and blessings there to wait\n   Like suppliants at their Monarch\u2019s gate,\n   Who bent with bounty rare to aid\n      The splendours of His crowning day,\n   Keeps back awhile His largess, made\n      More welcome for that brief delay:\n\n   In doubt they wait, but not unblest;\n   They doubt not of their Master\u2019s rest,\n   Nor of the gracious will of Heaven\u2014\n   Who gave His Son, sure all has given\u2014\n   But in ecstatic awe they muse\n   What course the genial stream may choose,\n   And far and wide their fancies rove,\n      And to their height of wonder strain,\n   What secret miracle of love\n      Should make their Saviour\u2019s going gain.\n\n   The days of hope and prayer are past,\n   The day of comfort dawns at last,\n   The everlasting gates again\n   Roll back, and, lo! a royal train\u2014\n   From the far depth of light once more\n   The floods of glory earthward pour:\n   They part like shower-drops in mid air,\n      But ne\u2019er so soft fell noon-tide shower,\n   Nor evening rainbow gleamed so fair\n      To weary swains in parch\u00e8d bower.\n\n   Swiftly and straight each tongue of flame\n   Through cloud and breeze unwavering came,\n   And darted to its place of rest\n   On some meek brow of Jesus blest.\n   Nor fades it yet, that living gleam,\n   And still those lambent lightnings stream;\n   Where\u2019er the Lord is, there are they;\n      In every heart that gives them room,\n   They light His altar every day,\n      Zeal to inflame, and vice consume.\n\n   Soft as the plumes of Jesus\u2019 Dove\n   They nurse the soul to heavenly love;\n   The struggling spark of good within,\n   Just smothered in the strife of sin,\n   They quicken to a timely glow,\n   The pure flame spreading high and low.\n   Said I, that prayer and hope were o\u2019er?\n      Nay, bless\u00e8d Spirit! but by Thee\n   The Church\u2019s prayer finds wings to soar,\n      The Church\u2019s hope finds eyes to see.\n\n   Then, fainting soul, arise and sing;\n   Mount, but be sober on the wing;\n   Mount up, for Heaven is won by prayer,\n   Be sober, for thou art not there;\n   Till Death the weary spirit free,\n   Thy God hath said, \u2019Tis good for thee\n   To walk by faith and not by sight:\n      Take it on trust a little while;\n   Soon shalt thou read the mystery right\n      In the full sunshine of His smile.\n\n   Or if thou yet more knowledge crave,\n   Ask thine own heart, that willing slave\n   To all that works thee woe or harm\n   Shouldst thou not need some mighty charm\n   To win thee to thy Saviour\u2019s side,\n   Though He had deigned with thee to bide?\n   The Spirit must stir the darkling deep,\n      The Dove must settle on the Cross,\n   Else we should all sin on or sleep\n      With Christ in sight, turning our gain to loss.\n\n\n\nFifth Sunday After Easter.\nROGATION SUNDAY.\n\n\n    And the Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I\n    prayed for Aaron also the same time.  _Deuteronomy_ ix. 20.\n\n   NOW is there solemn pause in earth and heaven;\n         The Conqueror now\n         His bonds hath riven,\n   And Angels wonder why He stays below:\n      Yet hath not man his lesson learned,\n      How endless love should be returned.\n\n   Deep is the silence as of summer noon,\n         When a soft shower\n         Will trickle soon,\n   A gracious rain, freshening the weary bower\u2014\n      O sweetly then far off is heard\n      The clear note of some lonely bird.\n\n   So let Thy turtle-dove\u2019s sad call arise\n         In doubt and fear\n         Through darkening skies,\n   And pierce, O Lord, Thy justly-seal\u00e8d ear,\n      Where on the house-top, all night long\n      She trills her widowed, faltering song.\n\n   Teach her to know and love her hour of prayer,\n         And evermore,\n         As faith grows rare,\n   Unlock her heart, and offer all its store\n      In holier love and humbler vows,\n      As suits a lost returning spouse.\n\n   Not as at first, but with intenser cry,\n         Upon the mount\n         She now must lie,\n   Till Thy dear love to blot the sad account\n      Of her rebellious race be won,\n      Pitying the mother in the son.\n\n   But chiefly (for she knows Thee angered worst\n         By holiest things\n         Profaned and curst),\n   Chiefly for Aaron\u2019s seed she spreads her wings,\n      If but one leaf she may from Thee\n      Win of the reconciling tree.\n\n   For what shall heal, when holy water banes!\n         Or who may guide\n         O\u2019er desert plains\n   Thy loved yet sinful people wandering wide,\n      If Aaron\u2019s hand unshrinking mould\n      An idol form of earthly gold?\n\n   Therefore her tears are bitter, and as deep\n         Her boding sigh,\n         As, while men sleep,\n   Sad-hearted mothers heave, that wakeful lie,\n      To muse upon some darling child\n      Roaming in youth\u2019s uncertain wild.\n\n   Therefore on fearful dreams her inward sight\n         Is fain to dwell\u2014\n         What lurid light\n   Shall the last darkness of the world dispel,\n      The Mediator in His wrath\n      Descending down the lightning\u2019s path.\n\n   Yet, yet awhile, offended Saviour, pause,\n         In act to break\n         Thine outraged laws,\n   O spare Thy rebels for Thine own dear sake;\n      Withdraw Thine hand, nor dash to earth\n      The covenant of our second birth.\n\n   \u2019Tis forfeit like the first\u2014we own it all\u2014\n         Yet for love\u2019s sake\n         Let it not fall;\n   But at Thy touch let veil\u00e8d hearts awake,\n      That nearest to Thine altar lie,\n      Yet least of holy things descry.\n\n   Teacher of teachers!  Priest of priests! from Thee\n         The sweet strong prayer\n         Must rise, to free\n   First Levi, then all Israel, from the snare.\n      Thou art our Moses out of sight\u2014\n      Speak for us, or we perish quite.\n\n\n\nAscension Day.\n\n\n    Why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken\n    up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen\n    Him go into Heaven.  _Acts_ i. 11\n\n         SOFT cloud, that while the breeze of May\n   Chants her glad matins in the leafy arch,\n      Draw\u2019st thy bright veil across the heavenly way\n   Meet pavement for an angel\u2019s glorious march:\n\n         My soul is envious of mine eye,\n   That it should soar and glide with thee so fast,\n      The while my grovelling thoughts half buried lie,\n   Or lawless roam around this earthly waste.\n\n         Chains of my heart, avaunt I say\u2014\n   I will arise, and in the strength of love\n      Pursue the bright track ere it fade away,\n   My Saviour\u2019s pathway to His home above.\n\n         Sure, when I reach the point where earth\n   Melts into nothing from th\u2019 uncumbered sight,\n      Heaven will o\u2019ercome th\u2019 attraction of my birth.\n   And I shall sink in yonder sea of light:\n\n         Till resting by th\u2019 incarnate LORD,\n   Once bleeding, now triumphant for my sake,\n      I mark Him, how by seraph hosts adored,\n   He to earth\u2019s lowest cares is still awake.\n\n         The sun and every vassal star,\n   All space, beyond the soar of angel wings,\n      Wait on His word: and yet He stays His car\n   For every sigh a contrite suppliant brings.\n\n         He listens to the silent tear\n   For all the anthems of the boundless sky\u2014\n      And shall our dreams of music bar our ear\n   To His soul-piercing voice for ever nigh?\n\n         Nay, gracious Saviour\u2014but as now\n   Our thoughts have traced Thee to Thy glory-throne\n      So help us evermore with thee to bow\n   Where human sorrow breathes her lowly moan.\n\n         We must not stand to gaze too long,\n   Though on unfolding Heaven our gaze we bend\n      Where lost behind the bright angelic throng\n   We see CHRIST\u2019S entering triumph slow ascend.\n\n         No fear but we shall soon behold,\n   Faster than now it fades, that gleam revive,\n      When issuing from his cloud of fiery gold\n   Our wasted frames feel the true sun, and live.\n\n         Then shall we see Thee as Thou art,\n   For ever fixed in no unfruitful gaze,\n      But such as lifts the new-created heart,\n   Age after age, in worthier love and praise.\n\n\n\nSunday after Ascension.\n\n\n    As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to\n    another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  1 _St.\n    Peter_ iv. 10.\n\n   THE Earth that in her genial breast\n   Makes for the down a kindly nest,\n   Where wafted by the warm south-west\n      It floats at pleasure,\n   Yields, thankful, of her very best,\n      To nurse her treasure:\n\n   True to her trust, tree, herb, or reed,\n   She renders for each scattered seed,\n   And to her Lord with duteous heed\n      Gives large increase:\n   Thus year by year she works unfeed,\n      And will not cease.\n\n   Woe worth these barren hearts of ours,\n   Where Thou hast set celestial flowers,\n   And watered with more balmy showers\n      Than e\u2019er distilled\n   In Eden, on th\u2019 ambrosial bowers\u2014\n      Yet nought we yield.\n\n   Largely Thou givest, gracious Lord,\n   Largely Thy gifts should be restored;\n   Freely Thou givest, and Thy word\n      Is, \u201cFreely give.\u201d\n   He only, who forgets to hoard,\n      Has learned to live.\n\n   Wisely Thou givest\u2014all around\n   Thine equal rays are resting found,\n   Yet varying so on various ground\n      They pierce and strike,\n   That not two roseate cups are crowned\n      With drew alike:\n\n   E\u2019en so, in silence, likest Thee,\n   Steals on soft-handed Charity,\n   Tempering her gifts, that seem so free,\n      By time and place,\n   Till not a woe the bleak world see,\n      But finds her grace:\n\n   Eyes to the blind, and to the lame\n   Feet, and to sinners wholesome blame,\n   To starving bodies food and flame,\n      By turns she brings;\n   To humbled souls, that sink for shame,\n      Lends heaven-ward wings:\n\n   Leads them the way our Saviour went,\n   And shows Love\u2019s treasure yet unspent;\n   As when th\u2019 unclouded heavens were rent.\n      Opening His road,\n   Nor yet His Holy Spirit sent\n      To our abode.\n\n   Ten days th\u2019 eternal doors displayed\n   Were wondering (so th\u2019 Almighty bade)\n   Whom Love enthroned would send, in aid\n      Of souls that mourn,\n   Left orphans in Earth\u2019s dreary shade\n      As noon as born.\n\n   Open they stand, that prayers in throngs\n   May rise on high, and holy songs,\n   Such incense as of right belongs\n      To the true shrine,\n   Where stands the Healer of all wrongs\n      In light divine;\n\n   The golden censer in His hand,\n   He offers hearts from every land,\n   Tied to His own by gentlest band\n      Of silent Love:\n   About Him wing\u00e8d blessings stand\n      In act to move.\n\n   A little while, and they shall fleet\n   From Heaven to Earth, attendants meet\n   On the life-giving Paraclete\n      Speeding His flight,\n   With all that sacred is and sweet,\n      On saints to light.\n\n   Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, all\n   Shall feel the shower of Mercy fall,\n   And startling at th\u2019 Almighty\u2019s call,\n      Give what He gave,\n   Till their high deeds the world appal,\n      And sinners save.\n\n\n\nWhitsunday.\n\n\n    And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty\n    wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there\n    appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon\n    each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.  _Acts_\n    ii. 2\u20134\n\n   WHEN God of old came down from Heaven,\n      In power and wrath He came;\n   Before His feet the clouds were riven,\n      Half darkness and half flame:\n\n   Around the trembling mountain\u2019s base\n      The prostrate people lay;\n   A day of wrath and not of grace;\n      A dim and dreadful day.\n\n   But when he came the second time,\n      He came in power and love,\n   Softer than gale at morning prime\n      Hovered His holy Dove.\n\n   The fires that rushed on Sinai down\n      In sudden torrents dread,\n   Now gently light, a glorious crown,\n      On every sainted head.\n\n   Like arrows went those lightnings forth\n      Winged with the sinner\u2019s doom,\n   But these, like tongues, o\u2019er all the earth\n      Proclaiming life to come:\n\n   And as on Israel\u2019s awe-struck ear\n      The voice exceeding loud,\n   The trump, that angels quake to hear,\n      Thrilled from the deep, dark cloud;\n\n   So, when the Spirit of our God\n      Came down His flock to find,\n   A voice from Heaven was heard abroad,\n      A rushing, mighty wind.\n\n   Nor doth the outward ear alone\n      At that high warning start;\n   Conscience gives back th\u2019 appalling tone;\n      \u2019Tis echoed in the heart.\n\n   It fills the Church of God; it fills\n      The sinful world around;\n   Only in stubborn hearts and wills\n      No place for it is found.\n\n   To other strains our souls are set:\n      A giddy whirl of sin\n   Fills ear and brain, and will not let\n      Heaven\u2019s harmonies come in.\n\n   Come Lord, Come Wisdom, Love, and Power,\n      Open our ears to hear;\n   Let us not miss th\u2019 accepted hour;\n      Save, Lord, by Love or Fear.\n\n\n\nMonday in Whitsun-week.\n\n\n    So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all\n    the earth; and they left off to build the city.  _Genesis_ xi. 8\n\n   SINCE all that is not Heaven must fade,\n   Light be the hand of Ruin laid\n      Upon the home I love:\n   With lulling spell let soft Decay\n   Steal on, and spare the giant sway,\n      The crash of tower and grove.\n\n   Far opening down some woodland deep\n   In their own quiet glade should sleep\n      The relics dear to thought,\n   And wild-flower wreaths from side to side\n   Their waving tracery hang, to hide\n      What ruthless Time has wrought.\n\n   Such are the visions green and sweet\n   That o\u2019er the wistful fancy fleet\n      In Asia\u2019s sea-like plain,\n   Where slowly, round his isles of sand,\n   Euphrates through the lonely land\n      Winds toward the pearly main.\n\n   Slumber is there, but not of rest;\n   There her forlorn and weary nest\n      The famished hawk has found,\n   The wild dog howls at fall of night,\n   The serpent\u2019s rustling coils affright\n      The traveller on his round.\n\n   What shapeless form, half lost on high,\n   Half seen against the evening sky,\n      Seems like a ghost to glide,\n   And watch, from Babel\u2019s crumbling heap,\n   Where in her shadow, fast asleep,\n      Lies fallen imperial Pride?\n\n   With half-closed eye a lion there\n   Is basking in his noontide lair,\n      Or prowls in twilight gloom.\n   The golden city\u2019s king he seems,\n   Such as in old prophetic dreams\n      Sprang from rough ocean\u2019s womb.\n\n   But where are now his eagle wings,\n   That sheltered erst a thousand kings,\n      Hiding the glorious sky\n   From half the nations, till they own\n   No holier name, no mightier throne?\n      That vision is gone by.\n\n   Quenched is the golden statue\u2019s ray,\n   The breath of heaven has blown away\n      What toiling earth had piled,\n   Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,\n   As breezes strew on ocean\u2019s sand\n      The fabrics of a child.\n\n   Divided thence through every age\n   Thy rebels, Lord, their warfare wage,\n      And hoarse and jarring all\n   Mount up their heaven-assailing cries\n   To Thy bright watchmen in the skies\n      From Babel\u2019s shattered wall.\n\n   Thrice only since, with blended might\n   The nations on that haughty height\n      Have met to scale the Heaven:\n   Thrice only might a Seraph\u2019s look\n   A moment\u2019s shade of sadness brook\u2014\n      Such power to guilt was given.\n\n   Now the fierce bear and leopard keen\n   Are perished as they ne\u2019er had been,\n      Oblivion is their home:\n   Ambition\u2019s boldest dream and last\n   Must melt before the clarion blast\n      That sounds the dirge of Rome.\n\n   Heroes and kings, obey the charm,\n   Withdraw the proud high-reaching arm,\n      There is an oath on high:\n   That ne\u2019er on brow of mortal birth\n   Shall blend again the crowns of earth,\n      Nor in according cry\n\n   Her many voices mingling own\n   One tyrant Lord, one idol throne:\n      But to His triumphs soon\n   _He_ shall descend, who rules above,\n   And the pure language of His love,\n      All tongues of men shall tune.\n\n   Nor let Ambition heartless mourn;\n   When Babel\u2019s very ruins burn,\n      Her high desires may breathe;\u2014\n   O\u2019ercome thyself, and thou mayst share\n   With Christ His Father\u2019s throne, and wear\n      The world\u2019s imperial wreath.\n\n\n\nTuesday in Whitsun-week.\n\n\n    When He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them.\n\n                                                          _St. John_ x. 4.\n\n                 (_Addressed to Candidates for Ordination_.)\n\n   \u201cLORD, in Thy field I work all day,\n   I read, I teach, I warn, I pray,\n   And yet these wilful wandering sheep\n   Within Thy fold I cannot keep.\n\n   \u201cI journey, yet no step is won\u2014\n   Alas! the weary course I run!\n   Like sailors shipwrecked in their dreams,\n   All powerless and benighted seems.\u201d\n\n   What? wearied out with half a life?\n   Scared with this smooth unbloody strife?\n   Think where thy coward hopes had flown\n   Had Heaven held out the martyr\u2019s crown.\n\n   How couldst thou hang upon the cross,\n   To whom a weary hour is loss?\n   Or how the thorns and scourging brook\n   Who shrinkest from a scornful look?\n\n   Yet ere thy craven spirit faints,\n   Hear thine own King, the King of Saints;\n   Though thou wert toiling in the grave,\n   \u2019Tis He can cheer thee, He can save.\n\n   He is th\u2019 eternal mirror bright,\n   Where Angels view the FATHER\u2019S light,\n   And yet in Him the simplest swain\n   May read his homely lesson plain.\n\n   Early to quit His home on earth,\n   And claim His high celestial birth,\n   Alone with His true Father found\n   Within the temple\u2019s solemn round:\u2014\n\n   Yet in meek duty to abide\n   For many a year at Mary\u2019s side,\n   Nor heed, though restless spirits ask,\n   \u201cWhat, hath the Christ forgot His task?\u201d\n\n   Conscious of Deity within,\n   To bow before an heir of sin,\n   With folded arms on humble breast,\n   By His own servant washed and blest:\u2014\n\n   Then full of Heaven, the mystic Dove\n   Hovering His gracious brow above,\n   To shun the voice and eye of praise,\n   And in the wild His trophies raise:\u2014\n\n   With hymns of angels in His ears,\n   Back to His task of woe and tears,\n   Unmurmuring through the world to roam\n   With not a wish or thought at home:\u2014\n\n   All but Himself to heal and save,\n   Till ripened for the cross and grave,\n   He to His Father gently yield\n   The breath that our redemption sealed:\u2014\n\n   Then to unearthly life arise,\n   Yet not at once to seek the skies,\n   But glide awhile from saint to saint,\n   Lest on our lonely way we faint;\n\n   And through the cloud by glimpses show\n   How bright, in Heaven, the marks will glow\n   Of the true cross, imprinted deep\n   Both on the Shepherd and the sheep:\u2014\n\n   When out of sight, in heart and prayer,\n   Thy chosen people still to bear,\n   And from behind Thy glorious veil,\n   Shed light that cannot change or fail:\u2014\n\n   This is Thy pastoral course, O LORD,\n   Till we be saved, and Thou adored;\u2014\n   Thy course and ours\u2014but who are they\n   Who follow on the narrow way?\n\n   And yet of Thee from year to year\n   The Church\u2019s solemn chant we hear,\n   As from Thy cradle to Thy throne\n   She swells her high heart-cheering tone.\n\n   Listen, ye pure white-rob\u00e8d souls,\n   Whom in her list she now enrolls,\n   And gird ye for your high emprize\n   By these her thrilling minstrelsies.\n\n   And wheresoe\u2019er in earth\u2019s wide field,\n   Ye lift, for Him, the red-cross shield,\n   Be this your song, your joy and pride\u2014\n   \u201cOur Champion went before and died.\u201d\n\n\n\nTrinity Sunday.\n\n\n    If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye\n    believe if I tell you of heavenly things?  _St. John_ iii. 12\n\n   CREATOR, Saviour, strengthening Guide,\n   Now on Thy mercy\u2019s ocean wide\n   Far out of sight we seem to glide.\n\n   Help us, each hour, with steadier eye\n   To search the deepening mystery,\n   The wonders of Thy sea and sky.\n\n   The bless\u00e8d Angels look and long\n   To praise Thee with a worthier song,\n   And yet our silence does Thee wrong.\u2014\n\n   Along the Church\u2019s central space\n   The sacred weeks, with unfelt pace,\n   Hath borne us on from grace to grace.\n\n   As travellers on some woodland height,\n   When wintry suns are gleaming bright,\n   Lose in arched glades their tangled sight;\u2014\n\n   By glimpses such as dreamers love\n   Through her grey veil the leafless grove\n   Shows where the distant shadows rove;\u2014\n\n   Such trembling joy the soul o\u2019er-awes\n   As nearer to Thy shrine she draws:\u2014\n   And now before the choir we pause.\n\n   The door is closed\u2014but soft and deep\n   Around the awful arches sweep,\n   Such airs as soothe a hermit\u2019s sleep.\n\n   From each carved nook and fretted bend\n   Cornice and gallery seem to send\n   Tones that with seraphs hymns might blend.\n\n   Three solemn parts together twine\n   In harmony\u2019s mysterious line;\n   Three solemn aisles approach the shrine:\n\n   Yet all are One\u2014together all,\n   In thoughts that awe but not appal,\n   Teach the adoring heart to fall.\n\n   Within these walls each fluttering guest\n   Is gently lured to one safe nest\u2014\n   Without, \u2019tis moaning and unrest.\n\n   The busy world a thousand ways\n   Is hurrying by, nor ever stays\n   To catch a note of Thy dear praise.\n\n   Why tarries not her chariot wheel,\n   That o\u2019er her with no vain appeal\n   One gust of heavenly song might steal?\n\n   Alas! for her Thy opening flowers\n   Unheeded breathe to summer showers,\n   Unheard the music of Thy bowers.\n\n   What echoes from the sacred dome\n   The selfish spirit may o\u2019ercome\n   That will not hear of love or home!\n\n   The heart that scorned a father\u2019s care,\n   How can it rise in filial prayer?\n   How an all-seeing Guardian bear?\n\n   Or how shall envious brethren own\n   A Brother on the eternal throne,\n   Their Father\u2019s joy, their hops alone?\n\n   How shall Thy Spirit\u2019s gracious wile\n   The sullen brow of gloom beguile,\n   That frowns on sweet Affection\u2019s smile?\n\n   Eternal One, Almighty Trine!\n   (Since Thou art ours, and we are Thine,)\n   By all Thy love did once resign,\n\n   By all the grace Thy heavens still hide,\n   We pray Thee, keep us at Thy side,\n   Creator, Saviour, strengthening Guide!\n\n\n\nFirst Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    So Joshua smote all the country, . . . and all their kings; he left\n    none remaining.  _Joshua_ x. 40.\n\n   WHERE is the land with milk and honey flowing,\n      The promise of our God, our fancy\u2019s theme?\n   Here over shattered walls dank weeds are growing,\n      And blood and fire have run in mingled stream;\n         Like oaks and cedars all around\n         The giant corses strew the ground,\n   And haughty Jericho\u2019s cloud-piercing wall\n   Lies where it sank at Joshua\u2019s trumpet call.\n\n   These are not scenes for pastoral dance at even,\n      For moonlight rovings in the fragrant glades,\n   Soft slumbers in the open eye of Heaven,\n      And all the listless joy of summer shades.\n         We in the midst of ruins live,\n         Which every hour dread warning give,\n   Nor may our household vine or fig-tree hide\n   The broken arches of old Canaan\u2019s pride.\n\n   Where is the sweet repose of hearts repenting,\n      The deep calm sky, the sunshine of the soul,\n   Now Heaven and earth are to our bliss consenting,\n      And all the Godhead joins to make us whole.\n         The triple crown of mercy now\n         Is ready for the suppliant\u2019s brow,\n   By the Almighty Three for ever planned,\n   And from behind the cloud held out by Jesus\u2019 hand.\n\n   \u201cNow, Christians, hold your own\u2014the land before ye\n      Is open\u2014win your way, and take your rest.\u201d\n   So sounds our war-note; but our path of glory\n      By many a cloud is darkened and unblest:\n         And daily as we downward glide,\n         Life\u2019s ebbing stream on either side\n   Shows at each turn some mouldering hope or joy,\n   The Man seems following still the funeral of the Boy.\n\n   Open our eyes, Thou Sun of life and gladness,\n      That we may see that glorious world of Thine!\n   It shines for us in vain, while drooping sadness\n      Enfolds us here like mist: come Power benign,\n         Touch our chilled hearts with vernal smile,\n         Our wintry course do Thou beguile,\n   Nor by the wayside ruins let us mourn,\n   Who have th\u2019 eternal towers for our appointed bourne.\n\n\n\nSecond Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.  We know that we have\n    passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.  1 _St.\n    John_ iii. 13, 14.\n\n   THE clouds that wrap the setting sun\n      When Autumn\u2019s softest gleams are ending,\n   Where all bright hues together run\n      In sweet confusion blending:\u2014\n   Why, as we watch their floating wreath\n   Seem they the breath of life to breathe?\n   To Fancy\u2019s eye their motions prove\n   They mantle round the Sun for love.\n\n   When up some woodland dale we catch\n      The many-twinkling smile of ocean,\n   Or with pleased ear bewildered watch\n      His chime of restless motion;\n   Still as the surging waves retire\n   They seem to gasp with strong desire,\n   Such signs of love old Ocean gives,\n   We cannot choose but think he lives.\n\n   Wouldst thou the life of souls discern?\n      Nor human wisdom nor divine\n   Helps thee by aught beside to learn;\n      Love is life\u2019s only sign.\n   The spring of the regenerate heart,\n   The pulse, the glow of every part,\n   Is the true love of Christ our Lord,\n   As man embraced, as God adored.\n\n   But he, whose heart will bound to mark\n      The full bright burst of summer morn,\n   Loves too each little dewy spark,\n      By leaf or flow\u2019ret worn:\n   Cheap forms, and common hues, \u2019tis true,\n   Through the bright shower-drop\u2019 meet his view;\n   The colouring may be of this earth;\n   The lustre comes of heavenly birth.\n\n   E\u2019en so, who loves the Lord aright,\n      No soul of man can worthless find;\n   All will be precious in his sight,\n      Since Christ on all hath shined:\n   But chiefly Christian souls; for they,\n   Though worn and soiled with sinful clay,\n   Are yet, to eyes that see them true,\n   All glistening with baptismal dew.\n\n   Then marvel not, if such as bask\n      In purest light of innocence,\n   Hope against mope, in love\u2019s dear task,\n      Spite of all dark offence.\n   If they who hate the trespass most,\n   Yet, when all other love is lost,\n   Love the poor sinner, marvel not;\n   Christ\u2019s mark outwears the rankest blot.\n\n   No distance breaks this tie of blood;\n      Brothers are brothers evermore;\n   Nor wrong, nor wrath of deadliest mood,\n      That magic may o\u2019erpower;\n   Oft, ere the common source be known,\n   The kindred drops will claim their own,\n   And throbbing pulses silently\n   Move heart towards heart by sympathy.\n\n   So it is with true Christian hearts;\n      Their mutual share in Jesus\u2019 blood\n   An everlasting bond imparts\n      Of holiest brotherhood:\n   Oh! might we all our lineage prove,\n   Give and forgive, do good and love,\n   By soft endearments in kind strife\n   Lightening the load of daily life.\n\n   There is much need; for not as yet\n      Are we in shelter or repose,\n   The holy house is still beset\n      With leaguer of stern foes;\n   Wild thoughts within, bad men without,\n   All evil spirits round about,\n   Are banded in unblest device,\n   To spoil Love\u2019s earthly paradise.\n\n   Then draw we nearer day by day,\n      Each to his brethren, all to God;\n   Let the world take us as she may,\n      We must not change our road;\n   Not wondering, though in grief, to find\n   The martyr\u2019s foe still keep her mind;\n   But fixed to hold Love\u2019s banner fast,\n   And by submission win at last.\n\n\n\nThird Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner\n    that repenteth.  _St. Luke_ xv. 10.\n\n   O HATEFUL spell of Sin! when friends are nigh,\n      To make stern Memory tell her tale unsought,\n   And raise accusing shades of hours gone by,\n      To come between us and all kindly thought!\n\n   Chilled at her touch, the self-reproaching soul\n      Flies from the heart and home she dearest loves,\n   To where lone mountains tower, or billows roll,\n      Or to your endless depth, ye solemn groves.\n\n   In vain: the averted cheek in loneliest dell\n      Is conscious of a gaze it cannot bear,\n   The leaves that rustle near us seem to tell\n      Our heart\u2019s sad secret to the silent air.\n\n   Nor is the dream untrue; for all around\n      The heavens are watching with their thousand eyes,\n   We cannot pass our guardian angel\u2019s bound,\n      Resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.\n\n   He in the mazes of the budding wood\n      Is near, and mourns to see our thankless glance\n   Dwell coldly, where the fresh green earth is strewed\n      With the first flowers that lead the vernal dance.\n\n   In wasteful bounty showered, they smile unseen,\n      Unseen by man\u2014but what if purer sprights\n   By moonlight o\u2019er their dewy bosoms lean\n      To adore the Father of all gentle lights?\n\n   If such there be, O grief and shame to think\n      That sight of thee should overcloud their joy,\n   A new-born soul, just waiting on the brink\n      Of endless life, yet wrapt in earth\u2019s annoy!\n\n   O turn, and be thou turned! the selfish tear,\n      In bitter thoughts of low-born care begun,\n   Let it flow on, but flow refined and clear,\n      The turbid waters brightening as they run.\n\n   Let it flow on, till all thine earthly heart\n      In penitential drops have ebbed away,\n   Then fearless turn where Heaven hath set thy part,\n      Nor shudder at the Eye that saw thee stray.\n\n   O lost and found! all gentle souls below\n      Their dearest welcome shall prepare, and prove\n   Such joy o\u2019er thee, as raptured seraphs know,\n      Who learn their lesson at the Throne of Love.\n\n\n\nFourth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the\n    manifestation of the sons of God.  For the creature was made subject\n    to vanity, not willingly, but by the reason of Him who hath subjected\n    the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered\n    from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the\n    children of God.  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and\n    travaileth in pain together until now.  _Romans_ viii 19\u201322.\n\n   IT was not then a poet\u2019s dream,\n      An idle vaunt of song,\n   Such as beneath the moon\u2019s soft gleam\n      On vacant fancies throng;\n\n   Which bids us see in heaven and earth,\n      In all fair things around,\n   Strong yearnings for a blest new birth\n      With sinless glories crowned;\n\n   Which bids us hear, at each sweet pause\n      From care and want and toil,\n   When dewy eve her curtain draws\n      Over the day\u2019s turmoil,\n\n   In the low chant of wakeful birds,\n      In the deep weltering flood,\n   In whispering leaves, these solemn words\u2014\n      \u201cGod made us all for good.\u201d\n\n   All true, all faultless, all in tune\n      Creation\u2019s wondrous choir,\n   Opened in mystic unison\n      To last till time expire.\n\n   And still it lasts; by day and night,\n      With one consenting voice,\n   All hymn Thy glory, Lord, aright,\n      All worship and rejoice.\n\n   Man only mars the sweet accord\n      O\u2019erpowering with \u201charsh din\u201d\n   The music of Thy works and word,\n      Ill matched with grief and sin.\n\n   Sin is with man at morning break,\n      And through the livelong day\n   Deafens the ear that fain would wake\n      To Nature\u2019s simple lay.\n\n   But when eve\u2019s silent footfall steals\n      Along the eastern sky,\n   And one by one to earth reveals\n      Those purer fires on high,\n\n   When one by one each human sound\n      Dies on the awful ear,\n   Then Nature\u2019s voice no more is drowned,\n      She speaks, and we must hear.\n\n   Then pours she on the Christian heart\n      That warning still and deep,\n   At which high spirits of old would start\n      E\u2019en from their Pagan sleep.\n\n   Just guessing, through their murky blind\n      Few, faint, and baffling sight,\n   Streaks of a brighter heaven behind,\n      A cloudless depth of light.\n\n   Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,\n      Through many a dreary age,\n   Upbore whate\u2019er of good and wise\n      Yet lived in bard or sage:\n\n   They marked what agonizing throes\n      Shook the great mother\u2019s womb:\n   But Reason\u2019s spells might not disclose\n      The gracious birth to come:\n\n   Nor could the enchantress Hope forecast\n      God\u2019s secret love and power;\n   The travail pangs of Earth must last\n      Till her appointed hour.\n\n   The hour that saw from opening heaven\n      Redeeming glory stream,\n   Beyond the summer hues of even,\n      Beyond the mid-day beam.\n\n   Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire,\n      The meanest thing below,\n   As with a seraph\u2019s robe of fire\n      Invested, burn and glow:\n\n   The rod of Heaven has touched them all,\n      The word from Heaven is spoken:\n   \u201cRise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall;\n      Are not thy fetters broken?\n\n   \u201cThe God Who hallowed thee and blest,\n      Pronouncing thee all good\u2014\n   Hath He not all thy wrongs redrest,\n      And all thy bliss renewed?\n\n   \u201cWhy mourn\u2019st thou still as one bereft,\n      Now that th\u2019 eternal Son\n   His bless\u00e8d home in Heaven hath left\n      To make thee all His own?\u201d\n\n   Thou mourn\u2019st because sin lingers still\n      In Christ\u2019s new heaven and earth;\n   Because our rebel works and will\n      Stain our immortal birth:\n\n   Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold,\n      The Saviour hides His face,\n   And worldlings blot the temple\u2019s gold\n      With uses vile and base.\n\n   Hence all thy groans and travail pains,\n      Hence, till thy God return,\n   In Wisdom\u2019s ear thy blithest strains,\n      Oh Nature, seem to mourn.\n\n\n\nFifth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the\n    night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless at Thy word I will let\n    down the net.  And when they had this done, they inclosed a great\n    multitude of fishes: and their net brake.  _St. Luke_ v. 5, 6.\n\n   \u201cThe livelong night we\u2019ve toiled in vain,\n      But at Thy gracious word\n   I will let down the net again:\u2014\n      Do Thou Thy will, O Lord!\u201d\n\n   So spake the weary fisher, spent\n      With bootless darkling toil,\n   Yet on his Master\u2019s bidding bent\n      For love and not for spoil.\n\n   So day by day and week by week,\n      In sad and weary thought,\n   They muse, whom God hath set to seek\n      The souls His Christ hath bought.\n\n   For not upon a tranquil lake\n      Our pleasant task we ply,\n   Where all along our glistening wake\n      The softest moonbeams lie;\n\n   Where rippling wave and dashing oar\n      Our midnight chant attend,\n   Or whispering palm-leaves from the shore\n      With midnight silence blend.\n\n   Sweet thoughts of peace, ye may not last:\n      Too soon some ruder sound\n   Calls us from where ye soar so fast\n      Back to our earthly round.\n\n   For wildest storms our ocean sweep:\u2014\n      No anchor but the Cross\n   Might hold: and oft the thankless deep\n      Turns all our toil to loss.\n\n   Full many a dreary anxious hour\n      We watch our nets alone\n   In drenching spray, and driving shower,\n      And hear the night-bird\u2019s moan:\n\n   At morn we look, and nought is there;\n      Sad dawn of cheerless day!\n   Who then from pining and despair\n      The sickening heart can stay?\n\n   There is a stay\u2014and we are strong;\n      Our Master is at hand,\n   To cheer our solitary song,\n      And guide us to the strand.\n\n   In His own time; but yet a while\n      Our bark at sea must ride;\n   Cast after cast, by force or guile\n      All waters must be tried:\n\n   By blameless guile or gentle force,\n      As when He deigned to teach\n   (The lode-star of our Christian course)\n      Upon this sacred beach.\n\n   Should e\u2019er thy wonder-working grace\n      Triumph by our weak arm,\n   Let not our sinful fancy trace\n      Aught human in the charm:\n\n   To our own nets ne\u2019er bow we down,\n      Lest on the eternal shore\n   The angels, while oar draught they own,\n      Reject us evermore:\n\n   Or, if for our unworthiness\n      Toil, prayer, and watching fail,\n   In disappointment Thou canst bless,\n      So love at heart prevail.\n\n\n\nSixth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.  And Nathan\n    said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not\n    die.  2 _Samuel_ xii. 13.\n\n      WHEN bitter thoughts, of conscience born,\n         With sinners wake at morn,\n      When from our restless couch we start,\n      With fevered lips and withered heart,\n   Where is the spell to charm those mists away,\n   And make new morning in that darksome day?\n      One draught of spring\u2019s delicious air,\n      One steadfast thought, that GOD is there.\n\n      These are Thy wonders, hourly wrought,\n         Thou Lord of time and thought,\n      Lifting and lowering souls at will,\n      Crowding a world of good or ill\n   Into a moment\u2019s vision; e\u2019en as light\n   Mounts o\u2019er a cloudy ridge, and all is bright,\n      From west to east one thrilling ray\n      Turning a wintry world to May.\n\n      Would\u2019st thou the pangs of guilt assuage?\n         Lo! here an open page,\n      Where heavenly mercy shines as free\n      Written in balm, sad heart, for thee.\n   Never so fast, in silent April shower,\n   Flushed into green the dry and leafless bower,\n      As Israel\u2019s crown\u00e8d mourner felt\n      The dull hard stone within him melt.\n\n      The absolver saw the mighty grief,\n         And hastened with relief;\u2014\n      \u201cThe Lord forgives; thou shalt not die:\u201d\n      \u2019Twas gently spoke, yet heard on high,\n   And all the band of angels, used to sing\n   In heaven, accordant to his raptured string,\n      Who many a month had turned away\n      With veil\u00e8d eyes, nor owned his lay,\n\n      Now spread their wings, and throng around\n         To the glad mournful sound,\n      And welcome, with bright open face,\n      The broken heart to love\u2019s embrace.\n   The rock is smitten, and to future years\n   Springs ever fresh the tide of holy tears\n      And holy music, whispering peace\n      Till time and sin together cease.\n\n      There drink: and when ye are at rest,\n         With that free Spirit blest,\n      Who to the contrite can dispense,\n      The princely heart of innocence,\n   If ever, floating from faint earthly lyre,\n   Was wafted to your soul one high desire,\n      By all the trembling hope ye feel,\n      Think on the minstrel as ye kneel:\n\n      Think on the shame, that dreadful hour\n         When tears shall have no power,\n      Should his own lay th\u2019 accuser prove,\n      Cold while he kindled others\u2019 love:\n   And let your prayer for charity arise,\n   That his own heart may hear his melodies,\n      And a true voice to him may cry,\n      \u201cThy GOD forgives\u2014thou shalt not die.\u201d\n\n\n\nSeventh Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the\n    wilderness?  _St. Mark_ viii. 4.\n\n      GO not away, thou weary soul:\n      Heaven has in store a precious dole\n   Here on Bethsaida\u2019s cold and darksome height,\n      Where over rocks and sands arise\n      Proud Sirion in the northern skies,\n   And Tabor\u2019s lonely peak, \u2019twixt thee and noonday light.\n\n      And far below, Gennesaret\u2019s main\n      Spreads many a mile of liquid plain,\n   (Though all seem gathered in one eager bound,)\n      Then narrowing cleaves you palmy lea,\n      Towards that deep sulphureous sea,\n   Where five proud cities lie, by one dire sentence drowned.\n\n      Landscape of fear! yet, weary heart,\n      Thou need\u2019st not in thy gloom depart,\n   Nor fainting turn to seek thy distant home:\n      Sweetly thy sickening throbs are eyed\n      By the kind Saviour at thy side;\n   For healing and for balm e\u2019en now thine hour is come.\n\n      No fiery wing is seen to glide,\n      No cates ambrosial are supplied,\n   But one poor fisher\u2019s rude and scanty store\n      Is all He asks (and more than needs)\n      Who men and angels daily feeds,\n   And stills the wailing sea-bird on the hungry shore.\n\n      The feast is o\u2019er, the guests are gone,\n      And over all that upland lone\n   The breeze of eve sweeps wildly as of old\u2014\n      But far unlike the former dreams,\n      The heart\u2019s sweet moonlight softly gleams\n   Upon life\u2019s varied view, so joyless erst and cold.\n\n      As mountain travellers in the night,\n      When heaven by fits is dark and bright,\n   Pause listening on the silent heath, and hear\n      Nor trampling hoof nor tinkling bell,\n      Then bolder scale the rugged fell,\n   Conscious the more of One, ne\u2019er seen, yet ever near:\n\n      So when the tones of rapture gay\n      On the lorn ear, die quite away,\n   The lonely world seems lifted nearer heaven;\n      Seen daily, yet unmarked before,\n      Earth\u2019s common paths are strewn all o\u2019er\n   With flowers of pensive hope, the wreath of man forgiven.\n\n      The low sweet tones of Nature\u2019s lyre\n      No more on listless ears expire,\n   Nor vainly smiles along the shady way\n      The primrose in her vernal nest,\n      Nor unlamented sink to rest\n   Sweet roses one by one, nor autumn leaves decay.\n\n      There\u2019s not a star the heaven can show,\n      There\u2019s not a cottage-hearth below,\n   But feeds with solace kind the willing soul\u2014\n      Men love us, or they need our love;\n      Freely they own, or heedless prove\n   The curse of lawless hearts, the joy of self-control.\n\n      Then rouse thee from desponding sleep,\n      Nor by the wayside lingering weep,\n   Nor fear to seek Him farther in the wild,\n      Whose love can turn earth\u2019s worst and least\n      Into a conqueror\u2019s royal feast:\n   Thou wilt not be untrue, thou shalt not be beguiled.\n\n\n\nEight Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord.\n    1 _King_ xiii. 26.\n\n   PROPHET of God, arise and take\n   With thee the words of wrath divine,\n      The scourge of Heaven, to shake\n      O\u2019er yon apostate shrine.\n\n   Where Angels down the lucid stair\n   Came hovering to our sainted sires\n      Now, in the twilight, glare\n      The heathen\u2019s wizard fires.\n\n   Go, with thy voice the altar rend,\n   Scatter the ashes, be the arm,\n      That idols would befriend,\n      Shrunk at thy withering charm.\n\n   Then turn thee, for thy time is short,\n   But trace not o\u2019er the former way,\n      Lest idol pleasures court\n      Thy heedless soul astray.\n\n   Thou know\u2019st how hard to hurry by,\n   Where on the lonely woodland road\n      Beneath the moonlight sky\n      The festal warblings flowed;\n\n   Where maidens to the Queen of Heaven\n   Wove the gay dance round oak or palm,\n      Or breathed their vows at even\n      In hymns as soft as balm.\n\n   Or thee, perchance, a darker spell\n   Enthralls: the smooth stones of the flood,\n      By mountain grot or fell,\n      Pollute with infant\u2019s blood;\n\n   The giant altar on the rock,\n   The cavern whence the timbrel\u2019s call\n      Affrights the wandering flock:\u2014\n      Thou long\u2019st to search them all.\n\n   Trust not the dangerous path again\u2014\n   O forward step and lingering will!\n      O loved and warned in vain!\n      And wilt thou perish still?\n\n   Thy message given, thine home in sight,\n   To the forbidden feast return?\n      Yield to the false delight\n      Thy better soul could spurn?\n\n   Alas, my brother! round thy tomb\n   In sorrow kneeling, and in fear,\n      We read the Pastor\u2019s doom\n      Who speaks and will not hear.\n\n   The grey-haired saint may fail at last,\n   The surest guide a wanderer prove;\n      Death only binds us fast\n      To the bright shore of love.\n\n\n\nNinth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire:\n    and after the fire a still small voice.  1 _Kings_ xix. 12.\n\n   IN troublous days of anguish and rebuke,\n   While sadly round them Israel\u2019s children look,\n      And their eyes fail for waiting on their Lord:\n   While underneath each awful arch of green,\n   On every mountain-top, God\u2019s chosen scene,\n      Of pure heart-worship, Baal is adored:\n\n   \u2019Tis well, true hearts should for a time retire\n   To holy ground, in quiet to aspire\n      Towards promised regions of serener grace;\n   On Horeb, with Elijah, let us lie,\n   Where all around on mountain, sand, and sky,\n      God\u2019s chariot wheels have left distinctest trace;\n\n   There, if in jealousy and strong disdain\n   We to the sinner\u2019s God of sin complain,\n      Untimely seeking here the peace of Heaven\u2014\n   \u201cIt is enough.  O Lord! now let me die\n   E\u2019en as my fathers did: for what am I\n      That I should stand where they have vainly striven?\u201d\u2014\n\n   Perhaps our God may of our conscience ask,\n   \u201cWhat doest thou here frail wanderer from thy task?\n      Where hast thou left those few sheep in the wild?\u201d\n   Then should we plead our heart\u2019s consuming pain,\n   At sight of ruined altars, prophets slain,\n      And God\u2019s own ark with blood of souls defiled;\n\n   He on the rock may bid us stand, and see\n   The outskirts of His march of mystery,\n      His endless warfare with man\u2019s wilful heart;\n   First, His great Power He to the sinner shows\n   Lo! at His angry blast the rocks unclose,\n      And to their base the trembling mountains part\n\n   Yet the Lord is not here: \u2019Tis not by Power\n   He will be known\u2014but darker tempests lower;\n      Still, sullen heavings vex the labouring ground:\n   Perhaps His Presence thro\u2019 all depth and height,\n   Best of all gems that deck His crown of light,\n      The haughty eye may dazzle and confound.\n\n   God is not in the earthquake; but behold\n   From Sinai\u2019s caves are bursting, as of old,\n      The flames of His consuming jealous ire.\n   Woe to the sinner should stern Justice prove\n   His chosen attribute;\u2014but He in love\n      Hastes to proclaim, \u201cGod is not in the fire.\u201d\n\n   The storm is o\u2019er\u2014and hark! a still small voice\n   Steals on the ear, to say, Jehovah\u2019s choice\n      Is ever with the soft, meek, tender soul;\n   By soft, meek, tender ways He loves to draw\n   The sinner, startled by His ways of awe:\n      Here is our Lord, and not where thunders roll.\n\n   Back, then, complainer; loath thy life no more,\n   Nor deem thyself upon a desert shore,\n      Because the rocks the nearer prospect close.\n   Yet in fallen Israel are there hearts and eyes\n   That day by day in prayer like thine arise;\n      Thou know\u2019st them not, but their Creator knows.\n\n   Go, to the world return, nor fear to cast\n   Thy bread upon the waters, sure at last\n      In joy to find it after many days.\n   The work be thine, the fruit thy children\u2019s part:\n   Choose to believe, not see: sight tempts the heart\n      From sober walking in true Gospel ways.\n\n\n\nTenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it.\n    _St. Luke_ xix. 41.\n\n   WHY doth my Saviour weep\n      At sight of Sion\u2019s bowers?\n   Shows it not fair from yonder steep,\n      Her gorgeous crown of towers?\n   Mark well His holy pains:\n      \u2019Tis not in pride or scorn,\n   That Israel\u2019s King with sorrow stains\n      His own triumphal morn.\n\n   It is not that His soul\n      Is wandering sadly on,\n   In thought how soon at death\u2019s dark goal\n      Their course will all be run,\n   Who now are shouting round\n      Hosanna to their chief;\n   No thought like this in Him is found,\n      This were a Conquerer\u2019s grief.\n\n   Or doth He feel the Cross\n      Already in His heart,\n   The pain, the shame, the scorn, the loss?\n      Feel e\u2019en His God depart?\n   No: though He knew full well\n      The grief that then shall be\u2014\n   The grief that angels cannot tell\u2014\n      Our God in agony.\n\n   It is not thus He mourns;\n      Such might be martyr\u2019s tears,\n   When his last lingering look he turns\n      On human hopes and fears;\n   But hero ne\u2019er or saint\n      The secret load might know,\n   With which His spirit waxeth faint;\n      His is a Saviour\u2019s woe.\n\n   \u201cIf thou had\u2019st known, e\u2019en thou,\n      At least in this thy day,\n   The message of thy peace! but now\n      \u2019Tis passed for aye away:\n   Now foes shall trench thee round,\n      And lay thee even with earth,\n   And dash thy children to the ground,\n      Thy glory and thy mirth.\u201d\n\n   And doth the Saviour weep\n      Over His people\u2019s sin,\n   Because we will not let Him keep\n      The souls He died to win?\n   Ye hearts, that love the Lord,\n      If at this, sight ye burn,\n   See that in thought, in deed, in word,\n      Ye hate what made Him mourn.\n\n\n\nEleventh Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and\n    oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and\n    maidservants?  2 _Kings_ v. 26.\n\n   IS this a time to plant and build,\n   Add house to house, and field to field,\n   When round our walls the battle lowers,\n   When mines are hid beneath our towers,\n   And watchful foes are stealing round\n   To search and spoil the holy ground?\n\n   Is this a time for moonlight dreams\n   Of love and home by mazy streams,\n   For Fancy with her shadowy toys,\n   A\u00ebrial hopes and pensive joys,\n   While souls are wandering far and wide,\n   And curses swarm on every side?\n\n   No\u2014rather steel thy melting heart\n   To act the martyr\u2019s sternest part,\n   To watch, with firm unshrinking eye,\n   Thy darling visions as thy die,\n   Till all bright hopes, and hues of day,\n   Have faded into twilight gray.\n\n   Yes\u2014let them pass without a sigh,\n   And if the world seem dull and dry,\n   If long and sad thy lonely hours,\n   And winds have rent thy sheltering bowers,\n   Bethink thee what thou art and where,\n   A sinner in a life of care.\n\n   The fire of God is soon to fall\n   (Thou know\u2019st it) on this earthly ball;\n   Full many a soul, the price of blood,\n   Marked by th\u2019 Almighty\u2019s hand for good,\n   To utter death that hour shall sweep\u2014\n   And will the saints in Heaven dare weep?\n\n   Then in His wrath shall GOD uproot\n   The trees He set, for lack of fruit,\n   And drown in rude tempestuous blaze\n   The towers His hand had deigned to raise;\n   In silence, ere that storm begin,\n   Count o\u2019er His mercies and thy sin.\n\n   Pray only that thine aching heart,\n   From visions vain content to part,\n   Strong for Love\u2019s sake its woe to hide\n   May cheerful wait the Cross beside,\n   Too happy if, that dreadful day,\n   Thy life be given thee for a prey.\n\n   Snatched sudden from th\u2019 avenging rod,\n   Safe in the bosom of thy GOD,\n   How wilt thou then look back, and smile\n   On thoughts that bitterest seemed erewhile,\n   And bless the pangs that made thee see\n   This was no world of rest for thee!\n\n\n\nTwelfth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    And looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha,\n    that is, Be opened.  _St. Mark_ vii. 34.\n\n   THE Son of God in doing good\n      Was fain to look to Heaven and sigh:\n   And shall the heirs of sinful blood\n      Seek joy unmixed in charity?\n   God will not let Love\u2019s work impart\n   Full solace, lest it steal the heart;\n   Be thou content in tears to sow,\n   Blessing, like Jesus, in thy woe:\n\n   He looked to Heaven, and sadly sighed\u2014\n      What saw my gracious Saviour there,\n   \u201cWith fear and anguish to divide\n      The joy of Heaven-accepted prayer?\n   So o\u2019er the bed where Lazarus slept\n   He to His Father groaned and wept:\n   What saw He mournful in that grave,\n   Knowing Himself so strong to save?\u201d\n\n   O\u2019erwhelming thoughts of pain and grief\n      Over His sinking spirit sweep;\u2014\n   What boots it gathering one lost leaf\n      Out of yon sere and withered heap,\n   Where souls and bodies, hopes and joys,\n   All that earth owns or sin destroys,\n   Under the spurning hoof are cast,\n   Or tossing in th\u2019 autumnal blast?\n\n   The deaf may hear the Saviour\u2019s voice,\n      The fettered tongue its chain may break;\n   But the deaf heart, the dumb by choice,\n      The laggard soul, that will not wake,\n   The guilt that scorns to be forgiven;\u2014\n   These baffle e\u2019en the spells of Heaven;\n   In thought of these, His brows benign\n   Not e\u2019en in healing cloudless shine.\n\n   No eye but His might ever bear\n      To gaze all down that drear abyss,\n   Because none ever saw so clear\n      The shore beyond of endless bliss:\n   The giddy waves so restless hurled,\n   The vexed pulse of this feverish world,\n   He views and counts with steady sight,\n   Used to behold the Infinite.\n\n   But that in such communion high\n      He hath a fount of strength within,\n   Sure His meek heart would break and die,\n      O\u2019erburthened by His brethren\u2019s sin;\n   Weak eyes on darkness dare not gaze,\n   It dazzles like the noonday blaze;\n   But He who sees God\u2019s face may brook\n   On the true face of Sin to look.\n\n   What then shall wretched sinners do,\n      When in their last, their hopeless day,\n   Sin, as it is, shall meet their view,\n      God turn His face for aye away?\n   Lord, by Thy sad and earnest eye,\n   When Thou didst look to Heaven and sigh:\n   Thy voice, that with a word could chase\n   The dumb, deaf spirit from his place;\n\n   As Thou hast touched our ears, and taught\n      Our tongues to speak Thy praises plain,\n   Quell Thou each thankless godless thought\n      That would make fast our bonds again.\n   From worldly strife, from mirth unblest,\n   Drowning Thy music in the breast,\n   From foul reproach, from thrilling fears,\n   Preserve, good Lord, Thy servants\u2019 ears.\n\n   From idle words, that restless throng\n      And haunt our hearts when we would pray,\n   From Pride\u2019s false chime, and jarring wrong,\n      Seal Thou my lips, and guard the way:\n   For Thou hast sworn, that every ear,\n   Willing or loth, Thy trump shall hear,\n   And every tongue unchain\u00e8d be\n   To own no hope, no God, but Thee.\n\n\n\nThirteenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    And He turned Him onto His disciples, and said privately, Blessed are\n    the eyes which see the things that ye see: for I tell you, that many\n    prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and\n    have not seen them: and to hear those things which ye hear, and have\n    not heard them.  _St. Luke_ x. 23, 24.\n\n   ON Sinai\u2019s top, in prayer and trance,\n      Full forty nights and forty days\n   The Prophet watched for one dear glance\n      Of thee and of Thy ways:\n\n   Fasting he watched and all alone,\n      Wrapt in a still, dark, solid cloud,\n   The curtain of the Holy One\n      Drawn round him like a shroud:\n\n   So, separate from the world, his breast\n      Might duly take and strongly keep\n   The print of Heaven, to be expressed\n      Ere long on Sion\u2019s steep.\n\n   There one by one his spirit saw\n      Of things divine the shadows bright,\n   The pageant of God\u2019s perfect law;\n      Yet felt not full delight.\n\n   Through gold and gems, a dazzling maze,\n      From veil to veil the vision led,\n   And ended, where unearthly rays\n      From o\u2019er the ark were shed.\n\n   Yet not that gorgeous place, nor aught\n      Of human or angelic frame,\n   Could half appease his craving thought;\n      The void was still the same.\n\n   \u201cShow me Thy glory, gracious Lord!\n      \u2019Tis Thee,\u201d he cries, \u201cnot Thine, I seek.\u201d\n   Na, start not at so bold a word\n      From man, frail worm and weak:\n\n   The spark of his first deathless fire\n      Yet buoys him up, and high above\n   The holiest creature, dares aspire\n      To the Creator\u2019s love.\n\n   The eye in smiles may wander round,\n      Caught by earth\u2019s shadows as they fleet;\n   But for the soul no help is found,\n      Save Him who made it, meet.\n\n   Spite of yourselves, ye witness this,\n      Who blindly self or sense adore;\n   Else wherefore leaving your own bliss\n      Still restless ask ye more?\n\n   This witness bore the saints of old\n      When highest rapt and favoured most,\n   Still seeking precious things untold,\n      Not in fruition lost.\n\n   Canaan was theirs; and in it all\n      The proudest hope of kings dare claim:\n   Sion was theirs; and at their call\n      Fire from Jehovah came.\n\n   Yet monarchs walked as pilgrims still\n      In their own land, earth\u2019s pride and grace:\n   And seers would mourn on Sion\u2019s hill\n      Their Lord\u2019s averted face.\n\n   Vainly they tried the deeps to sound\n      E\u2019en of their own prophetic thought,\n   When of Christ crucified and crowned\n      His Spirit in them taught:\n\n   But He their aching gaze repressed,\n      Which sought behind the veil to see,\n   For not without us fully blest\n      Or perfect might they be.\n\n   The rays of the Almighty\u2019s face\n      No sinner\u2019s eye might then receive;\n   Only the meekest man found grace\n      To see His skirts and live.\n\n   But we as in a glass espy\n      The glory of His countenance,\n   Not in a whirlwind hurrying by\n      The too presumptuous glance,\n\n   But with mild radiance every hour,\n      From our dear Saviour\u2019s face benign\n   Bent on us with transforming power,\n      Till we, too, faintly shine.\n\n   Sprinkled with His atoning blood\n      Safely before our God we stand,\n   As on the rock the Prophet stood,\n      Beneath His shadowing hand.\u2014\n\n   Blessed eyes, which see the things we see!\n      And yet this tree of life hath proved\n   To many a soul a poison tree,\n      Beheld, and not beloved.\n\n   So like an angel\u2019s is our bliss\n      (Oh! thought to comfort and appal)\n   It needs must bring, if used amiss,\n      An angel\u2019s hopeless fall.\n\n\n\nFourteenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are\n    the nine?  There are not found that returned to give glory to God,\n    save this stranger.  _St. Luke_ xvii. 17, 18.\n\n   TEN cleansed, and only one remain!\n   Who would have thought our nature\u2019s stain\n   Was dyed so foul, so deep in grain?\n      E\u2019en He who reads the heart\u2014\n   Knows what He gave and what we lost,\n   Sin\u2019s forfeit, and redemption\u2019s cost,\u2014\n   By a short pang of wonder crossed\n      Seems at the sight to start:\n\n   Yet \u2019twas not wonder, but His love\n   Our wavering spirits would reprove,\n   That heavenward seem so free to move\n      When earth can yield no more\n   Then from afar on God we cry,\n   But should the mist of woe roll by,\n   Not showers across an April sky\n      Drift, when the storm is o\u2019er,\n\n   Faster than those false drops and few\n   Fleet from the heart, a worthless dew.\n   What sadder scene can angels view\n      Than self-deceiving tears,\n   Poured idly over some dark page\n   Of earlier life, though pride or rage,\n   The record of to-day engage,\n      A woe for future years?\n\n   Spirits, that round the sick man\u2019s bed\n   Watched, noting down each prayer he made,\n   Were your unerring roll displayed,\n      His pride of health to abase;\n   Or, when, soft showers in season fall\n   Answering a famished nation\u2019s call,\n   Should unseen fingers on the wall\n      Our vows forgotten trace:\n\n   How should we gaze in trance of fear!\n   Yet shines the light as thrilling clear\n   From Heaven upon that scroll severe,\n      \u201cTen cleansed and one remain!\u201d\n   Nor surer would the blessing prove\n   Of humbled hearts, that own Thy love,\n   Should choral welcome from above\n      Visit our senses plain:\n\n   Than by Thy placid voice and brow,\n   With healing first, with comfort now,\n   Turned upon him, who hastes to bow\n      Before Thee, heart and knee;\n   \u201cOh! thou, who only wouldst be blest,\n   On thee alone My blessing rest!\n   Rise, go thy way in peace, possessed\n      For evermore of Me.\u201d\n\n\n\nFifteenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.  _St. Matthew_, vi.\n    28.\n\n   SWEET nurslings of the vernal skies,\n      Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew,\n   What more than magic in you lies,\n      To fill the heart\u2019s fond view?\n   In childhood\u2019s sports, companions gay,\n   In sorrow, on Life\u2019s downward way,\n   How soothing! in our last decay\n      Memorials prompt and true.\n\n   Relics ye are of Eden\u2019s bowers,\n      As pure, as fragrant, and as fair,\n   As when ye crowned the sunshine hours\n      Of happy wanderers there.\n   Fall\u2019n all beside\u2014the world of life,\n   How is it stained with fear and strife!\n   In Reason\u2019s world what storms are rife,\n      What passions range and glare!\n\n   But cheerful and unchanged the while\n      Your first and perfect form ye show,\n   The same that won Eve\u2019s matron smile\n      In the world\u2019s opening glow.\n   The stars of heaven a course are taught\n   Too high above our human thought:\n   Ye may be found if ye are sought,\n      And as we gaze, we know.\n\n   Ye dwell beside our paths and homes,\n      Our paths of sin, our homes of sorrow,\n   And guilty man where\u2019er he roams,\n      Your innocent mirth may borrow.\n   The birds of air before us fleet,\n   They cannot brook our shame to meet\u2014\n   But we may taste your solace sweet\n      And come again to-morrow.\n\n   Ye fearless in your nests abide\u2014\n      Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise,\n   Your silent lessons, undescried\n      By all but lowly eyes:\n   For ye could draw th\u2019 admiring gaze\n   Of Him who worlds and hearts surveys:\n   Your order wild, your fragrant maze,\n      He taught us how to prize.\n\n   Ye felt your Maker\u2019s smile that hour,\n      As when He paused and owned you good;\n   His blessing on earth\u2019s primal bower,\n      Ye felt it all renewed.\n   What care ye now, if winter\u2019s storm\n   Sweep ruthless o\u2019er each silken form?\n   Christ\u2019s blessing at your heart is warm,\n      Ye fear no vexing mood.\n\n   Alas! of thousand bosoms kind,\n      That daily court you and caress,\n   How few the happy secret find\n      Of your calm loveliness!\n   \u201cLive for to-day! to-morrow\u2019s light\n   To-morrow\u2019s cares shall bring to sight,\n   Go sleep like closing flowers at night,\n      And Heaven thy morn will bless.\u201d\n\n\n\nSixteenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your\n    glory.\n\n                                                      _Ephesians_ iii. 13.\n\n   WISH not, dear friends, my pain away\u2014\n      Wish me a wise and thankful heart,\n   With GOD, in all my griefs, to stay,\n      Nor from His loved correction start.\n\n   The dearest offering He can crave\n      His portion in our souls to prove,\n   What is it to the gift He gave,\n      The only Son of His dear love?\n\n   But we, like vexed unquiet sprights,\n      Will still be hovering o\u2019er the tomb,\n   Where buried lie our vain delights,\n      Nor sweetly take a sinner\u2019s doom.\n\n   In Life\u2019s long sickness evermore\n      Our thoughts are tossing to and fro:\n   We change our posture o\u2019er and o\u2019er,\n      But cannot rest, nor cheat our woe.\n\n   Were it not better to lie still,\n      Let Him strike home and bless the rod,\n   Never so safe as when our will\n      Yields undiscerned by all but God?\n\n   Thy precious things, whate\u2019er they be,\n      That haunt and vex thee, heart and brain,\n   Look to the Cross and thou shalt see\n      How thou mayst turn them all to gain.\n\n   Lovest thou praise? the Cross is shame:\n      Or ease? the Cross is bitter grief:\n   More pangs than tongue or heart can frame\n      Were suffered there without relief.\n\n   We of that Altar would partake,\n      But cannot quit the cost\u2014no throne\n   Is ours, to leave for Thy dear sake\u2014\n      We cannot do as Thou hast done.\n\n   We cannot part with Heaven for Thee\u2014\n      Yet guide us in Thy track of love:\n   Let us gaze on where light should be,\n      Though not a beam the clouds remove.\n\n   So wanderers ever fond and true\n      Look homeward through the evening sky,\n   Without a streak of heaven\u2019s soft blue\n      To aid Affection\u2019s dreaming eye.\n\n   The wanderer seeks his native bower,\n      And we will look and long for Thee,\n   And thank Thee for each trying hour,\n      Wishing, not struggling, to be free.\n\n\n\nSeventeenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his\n    heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his\n    face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that\n    cometh according to the multitude of his idols.  _Ezekiel_ xiv. 4.\n\n   STATELY thy walls, and holy are the prayers\n      Which day and night before thine altars rise:\n   Not statelier, towering o\u2019er her marble stairs,\n      Flashed Sion\u2019s gilded dome to summer skies,\n   Not holier, while around him angels bowed,\n   From Aaron\u2019s censer steamed the spicy cloud,\n\n   Before the mercy-seat.  O Mother dear,\n      Wilt thou forgive thy son one boding sigh?\n   Forgive, if round thy towers he walk in fear,\n      And tell thy jewels o\u2019er with jealous eye?\n   Mindful of that sad vision, which in thought\n   From Chebar\u2019s plains the captive prophet brought.\n\n   To see lost Sion\u2019s shame.  \u2019Twas morning prime,\n      And like a Queen new seated on her throne,\n   GOD\u2019S crown\u00e8d mountain, as in happier time,\n      Seemed to rejoice in sunshine all her own:\n   So bright, while all in shade around her lay,\n   Her northern pinnacles had caught th\u2019 emerging ray.\n\n   The dazzling lines of her majestic roof\n      Crossed with as free a span the vault of heaven,\n   As when twelve tribes knelt silently aloof\n      Ere GOD His answer to their king had given,\n   Ere yet upon the new-built altar fell\n   The glory of the LORD, the Lord of Israel.\n\n   All seems the same: but enter in and see\n      What idol shapes are on the wall portrayed:\n   And watch their shameless and unholy glee,\n      Who worship there in Aaron\u2019s robes arrayed:\n   Hear Judah\u2019s maids the dirge to Thammuz pour,\n   And mark her chiefs yon orient sun adore.\n\n   Yet turn thee, son of man\u2014for worse than these\n      Thou must behold: thy loathing were but lost\n   On dead men\u2019s crimes, and Jews\u2019 idolatries\u2014\n      Come, learn to tell aright thine own sins\u2019 cost,\u2014\n   And sure their sin as far from equals thine,\n   As earthly hopes abused are less than hopes divine.\n\n   What if within His world, His Church, our LORD\n      Have entered thee, as in some temple gate,\n   Where, looking round, each glance might thee afford\n      Some glorious earnest of thine high estate,\n   And thou, false heart and frail, hast turned from all\n   To worship pleasure\u2019s shadow on the wall?\n\n   If, when the LORD of Glory was in sight,\n      Thou turn thy back upon that fountain clear,\n   To bow before the \u201clittle drop of light,\u201d\n      Which dim-eyed men call praise and glory here;\n   What dost thou, but adore the sun, and scorn\n   Him at whose only word both sun and stars were born?\n\n   If, while around thee gales from Eden breathe,\n      Thou hide thine eyes, to make thy peevish moan\n   Over some broken reed of earth beneath,\n      Some darling of blind fancy dead and gone,\n   As wisely might\u2019st thou in JEHOVAH\u2019S fane\n   Offer thy love and tears to Thammuz slain.\n\n   Turn thee from these, or dare not to inquire\n      Of Him whose name is Jealous, lest in wrath\n   He hear and answer thine unblest desire:\n      Far better we should cross His lightning\u2019s path\n   Than be according to our idols beard,\n   And God should take us at our own vain word.\n\n   Thou who hast deigned the Christian\u2019s heart to call\n      Thy Church and Shrine; whene\u2019er our rebel will\n   Would in that chosen home of Thine instal\n      Belial or Mammon, grant us not the ill\n   We blindly ask; in very love refuse\n   Whate\u2019er Thou knowest our weakness would abuse.\n\n   Or rather help us, LORD, to choose the good,\n      To pray for nought, to seek to none, but Thee,\n   Nor by \u201cour daily bread\u201d mean common food,\n      Nor say, \u201cFrom this world\u2019s evil set us free;\u201d\n   Teach us to love, with CHRIST, our sole true bliss,\n   Else, though in CHRIST\u2019S own words, we surely pray amiss.\n\n\n\nEighteenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I\n    plead with you face to face.  Like as pleaded with your fathers in\n    the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith\n    the Lord God.  _Ezekiel_ xx. 35, 36.\n\n   IT is so\u2014ope thine eyes, and see\u2014\n      What viewest thou all around?\n   A desert, where iniquity\n      And knowledge both abound.\n\n   In the waste howling wilderness\n      The Church is wandering still,\n   Because we would not onward press\n      When close to Sion\u2019s hill.\n\n   Back to the world we faithless turned,\n      And far along the wild,\n   With labour lost and sorrow earned,\n      Our steps have been beguiled.\n\n   Yet full before us, all the while,\n      The shadowing pillar stays,\n   The living waters brightly smile,\n      The eternal turrets blaze,\n\n   Yet Heaven is raining angels\u2019 bread\n      To be our daily food,\n   And fresh, as when it first was shed,\n      Springs forth the SAVIOUR\u2019S blood.\n\n   From every region, race, and speech,\n      Believing myriads throng,\n   Till, far as sin and sorrow reach,\n      Thy grace is spread along;\n\n   Till sweetest nature, brightest art,\n      Their votive incense bring,\n   And every voice and every heart\n      Own Thee their God and King.\n\n   All own; but few, alas! will love;\n      Too like the recreant band\n   That with Thy patient spirit strove\n      Upon the Red-sea strand.\n\n   O Father of long-suffering grace,\n      Thou who hast sworn to stay\n   Pleading with sinners face to face\n      Through all their devious way:\n\n   How shall we speak to Thee, O LORD,\n      Or how in silence lie?\n   Look on us, and we are abhorred,\n      Turn from us, and we die.\n\n   Thy guardian fire, Thy guiding cloud,\n      Still let them gild our wall,\n   Nor be our foes and Thine allowed\n      To see us faint and fall.\n\n   Too oft, within this camp of Thine,\n      Rebellions murmurs rise;\n   Sin cannot bear to see Thee shine\n      So awful to her eyes.\n\n   Fain would our lawless hearts escape,\n      And with the heathen be,\n   To worship every monstrous shape\n      In fancied darkness free.\n\n   Vain thought, that shall not be at all!\n      Refuse we or obey,\n   Our ears have heard the Almighty\u2019s call,\n      We cannot be as they.\n\n   We cannot hope the heathen\u2019s doom\n      To whom GOD\u2019S Son is given,\n   Whose eyes have seen beyond the tomb,\n      Who have the key of Heaven.\n\n   Weak tremblers on the edge of woe,\n      Yet shrinking from true bliss,\n   Our rest must be \u201cno rest below,\u201d\n      And let our prayer be this:\n\n   \u201cLORD, wave again Thy chastening rod,\n      Till every idol throne\n   Crumble to dust, and Thou, O GOD,\n      Reign in our hearts alone.\n\n   \u201cBring all our wandering fancies home,\n      For Thou hast every spell,\n   And \u2019mid the heathen where they roam,\n      Thou knowest, LORD, too well.\n\n   \u201cThou know\u2019st our service sad and hard,\n      Thou know\u2019st us fond and frail;\n   Win us to be loved and spared\n      When all the world shall fail.\n\n   \u201cSo when at last our weary days\n      Are well-nigh wasted here,\n   And we can trace Thy wondrous ways\n      In distance calm and clear,\n\n   \u201cWhen in Thy love and Israel\u2019s sin\n      We read our story true,\n   We may not, all too late, begin\n      To wish our hopes were new.\n\n   \u201cLong loved, long tried, long spared as they,\n      Unlike in this alone,\n   That, by Thy grace, our hearts shall stay\n      For evermore Thine own.\u201d\n\n\n\nNineteenth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste,\n    and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men\n    bound into the midst of the fire?  They answered and said unto the\n    king, True, O king.  He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose,\n    walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form\n    of the fourth is like the Son of God.  _Daniel_ iii. 24, 25.\n\n   WHEN Persecution\u2019s torrent blaze\n      Wraps the unshrinking Martyr\u2019s head;\n   When fade all earthly flowers and bays,\n      When summer friends are gone and fled,\n   Is he alone in that dark hour\n   Who owns the Lord of love and power?\n\n   Or waves there not around his brow\n      A wand no human arm may wield,\n   Fraught with a spell no angels know,\n      His steps to guide, his soul to shield?\n   Thou, Saviour, art his Charm\u00e8d Bower,\n   His Magic Ring, his Rock, his Tower.\n\n   And when the wicked ones behold\n      Thy favourites walking in Thy light,\n   Just as, in fancy triumph bold,\n      They deemed them lost in deadly night,\n   Amazed they cry, \u201cWhat spell is this,\n   Which turns their sufferings all to bliss?\n\n   \u201cHow are they free whom we had bound?\n      Upright, whom in the gulf we cast?\n   What wondrous helper have they found\n      To screen them from the scorching blast?\n   Three were they\u2014who hath made them four?\n   And sure a form divine he wore,\n\n   \u201cE\u2019en like the Son of God.\u201d  So cried\n      The Tyrant, when in one fierce flame\n   The Martyrs lived, the murderers died:\n      Yet knew he not what angel came\n   To make the rushing fire-flood seem\n   Like summer breeze by woodland stream.\n\n   He knew not, but there are who know:\n      The Matron, who alone hath stood,\n   When not a prop seemed left below,\n      The first lorn hour of widowhood,\n   Yet cheered and cheering all, the while,\n   With sad but unaffected smile;\u2014\n\n   The Father, who his vigil keeps\n      By the sad couch whence hope hath flown,\n   Watching the eye where reason sleeps,\n      Yet in his heart can mercy own,\n   Still sweetly yielding to the rod,\n   Still loving man, still thanking GOD;\u2014\n\n   The Christian Pastor, bowed to earth\n      With thankless toil, and vile esteemed,\n   Still travailing in second birth\n      Of souls that will not be redeemed:\n   Yet stedfast set to do his part,\n   And fearing most his own vain heart;\u2014\n\n   These know: on these look long and well,\n      Cleansing thy sight by prayer and faith,\n   And thou shalt know what secret spell\n      Preserves them in their living death:\n   Through sevenfold flames thine eye shall see\n   The Saviour walking with His faithful Three.\n\n\n\nTwentieth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord\u2019s controversy, and ye strong\n    foundations of the earth.  _Micah_ vi. 2.\n\n   WHERE is Thy favoured haunt, eternal Voice,\n      The region of Thy choice,\n   Where, undisturbed by sin and earth, the soul\n      Owns Thy entire control?\u2014\n   \u2019Tis on the mountain\u2019s summit dark and high,\n      When storms are hurrying by:\n   \u2019Tis \u2019mid the strong foundations of the earth,\n      Where torrents have their birth.\n\n   No sounds of worldly toil ascending there,\n      Mar the full burst of prayer;\n   Lone Nature feels that she may freely breathe,\n      And round us and beneath\n   Are heard her sacred tones: the fitful sweep\n      Of winds across the steep\n   Through withered bents\u2014romantic note and clear,\n      Meet for a hermit\u2019s ear,\u2014\n\n   The wheeling kite\u2019s wild solitary cry,\n      And, scarcely heard so high,\n   The dashing waters when the air is still\n      From many a torrent rill\n   That winds unseen beneath the shaggy fell,\n      Tracked by the blue mist well:\n   Such sounds as make deep silence in the heart\n      For Thought to do her part.\n\n   \u2019Tis then we hear the voice of GOD within,\n      Pleading with care and sin:\n   \u201cChild of My love! how have I wearied thee?\n      Why wilt thou err from Me?\n   Have I not brought thee from the house of slaves,\n      Parted the drowning waves,\n   And set My saints before thee in the way,\n      Lest thou shouldst faint or stray?\n\n   \u201cWhat! was the promise made to thee alone?\n      Art thou the excepted one?\n   An heir of glory without grief or pain?\n      O vision false and vain!\n   There lies thy cross; beneath it meekly bow;\n      It fits thy stature now:\n   Who scornful pass it with averted eye,\n      \u2019Twill crush them by-and-by.\n\n   \u201cRaise thy repining eyes, and take true measure\n      Of thine eternal treasure;\n   The Father of thy Lord can grudge thee nought,\n      The world for thee was bought;\n   And as this landscape broad\u2014earth, sea, and sky,\u2014\n      All centres in thine eye,\n   So all God does, if rightly understood,\n      Shall work thy final good.\u201d\n\n\n\nTwenty-first Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall\n    speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will\n    surely come, it will not tarry.  _Habakkuk_ ii. 3.\n\n      THE morning mist is cleared away,\n      Yet still the face of Heaven is grey,\n   Nor yet this autumnal breeze has stirred the grove,\n      Faded yet full, a paler green\n      Skirts soberly the tranquil scene,\n   The red-breast warbles round this leafy cove.\n\n      Sweet messenger of \u201ccalm decay,\u201d\n      Saluting sorrow as you may,\n   As one still bent to find or make the best,\n      In thee, and in this quiet mead,\n      The lesson of sweet peace I read,\n   Rather in all to be resigned than blest.\n\n      \u2019Tis a low chant, according well\n      With the soft solitary knell,\n   As homeward from some grave beloved we turn,\n      Or by some holy death-bed dear,\n      Most welcome to the chastened ear\n   Of her whom Heaven is teaching how to mourn.\n\n      O cheerful tender strain! the heart\n      That duly bears with you its part,\n   Singing so thankful to the dreary blast,\n      Though gone and spent its joyous prime,\n      And on the world\u2019s autumnal time,\n   \u2019Mid withered hues and sere, its lot be cast:\n\n      That is the heart for thoughtful seer,\n      Watching, in trance nor dark nor clear,\n   Th\u2019 appalling Future as it nearer draws:\n      His spirit calmed the storm to meet,\n      Feeling the rock beneath his feet,\n   And tracing through the cloud th\u2019 eternal Cause.\n\n      That is the heart for watchman true\n      Waiting to see what GOD will do,\n   As o\u2019er the Church the gathering twilight falls\n      No more he strains his wistful eye,\n      If chance the golden hours be nigh,\n   By youthful Hope seen beaming round her walls.\n\n      Forced from his shadowy paradise,\n      His thoughts to Heaven the steadier rise:\n   There seek his answer when the world reproves:\n      Contented in his darkling round,\n      If only he be faithful found,\n   When from the east the eternal morning moves.\n\n_Note_: The expression, \u201ccalm delay,\u201d is borrowed from a friend, by whose\nkind permission the following stanzas are here inserted.\n\n\nTO THE RED-BREAST.\n\n\n   Unheard in summer\u2019s flaring ray,\n      Pour forth thy notes, sweet singer,\n   Wooing the stillness of the autumn day:\n      Bid it a moment linger,\n         Nor fly\n   Too soon from winter\u2019s scowling eye.\n\n   The blackbird\u2019s song at even-tide,\n      And hers, who gay ascends,\n   Filling the heavens far and wide,\n      Are sweet.  But none so blends,\n         As thine,\n   With calm decay, and peace divine.\n\n\n\nTwenty-Second Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?\n    _Matthew_ xviii. 21.\n\n   WHAT liberty so glad and gay,\n      As where the mountain boy,\n   Reckless of regions far away,\n      A prisoner lives in joy?\n\n   The dreary sounds of crowded earth,\n      The cries of camp or town,\n   Never untuned his lonely mirth,\n      Nor drew his visions down.\n\n   The snow-clad peaks of rosy light\n      That meet his morning view,\n   The thwarting cliffs that bound his sight,\n      They bound his fancy too.\n\n   Two ways alone his roving eye\n      For aye may onward go,\n   Or in the azure deep on high,\n      Or darksome mere below.\n\n   O blest restraint! more bless\u00e8d range!\n      Too soon the happy child\n   His nook of homely thought will change\n      For life\u2019s seducing wild:\n\n   Too soon his altered day-dreams show\n      This earth a boundless space,\n   With sun-bright pleasures to and fro\n      Sporting in joyous race:\n\n   While of his narrowing heart each year,\n      Heaven less and less will fill,\n   Less keenly, thorough his grosser ear,\n      The tones of mercy thrill.\n\n   It must be so: else wherefore falls\n      The Saviour\u2019s voice unheard,\n   While from His pard\u2019ning Cross He calls,\n      \u201cO spare as I have spared?\u201d\n\n   By our own niggard rule we try\n      The hope to suppliants given!\n   We mete out love, as if our eye\n      Saw to the end of Heaven.\n\n   Yes, ransomed sinner! wouldst thou know\n      How often to forgive,\n   How dearly to embrace thy foe,\n      Look where thou hop\u2019st to live;\u2014\n\n   When thou hast told those isles of light,\n      And fancied all beyond,\n   Whatever owns, in depth or height,\n      Creation\u2019s wondrous bond;\n\n   Then in their solemn pageant learn\n      Sweet mercy\u2019s praise to see:\n   Their Lord resigned them all, to earn\n      The bliss of pardoning thee.\n\n\n\nTwenty-third Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto\n    His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even\n    to subdue all things onto Himself.  _Philippians_ iii. 21.\n\n   RED o\u2019er the forest peers the setting sun,\n      The line of yellow light dies fast away\n   That crowned the eastern copse: and chill and dun\n      Falls on the moor the brief November day.\n\n   Now the tired hunter winds a parting note,\n      And Echo hide good-night from every glade;\n   Yet wait awhile, and see the calm heaves float\n      Each to his rest beneath their parent shade.\n\n   How like decaying life they seem to glide!\n      And yet no second spring have they in store,\n   But where they fall, forgotten to abide\n      Is all their portion, and they ask no more.\n\n   Soon o\u2019er their heads blithe April airs shall sing,\n      A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold,\n   The green buds glisten in the dews of Spring,\n      And all be vernal rapture as of old.\n\n   Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie,\n      In all the world of busy life around\n   No thought of them; in all the bounteous sky,\n      No drop, for them, of kindly influence found.\n\n   Man\u2019s portion is to die and rise again\u2014\n      Yet he complains, while these unmurmuring part\n   With their sweet lives, as pure from sin and stain,\n      As his when Eden held his virgin heart.\n\n   And haply half unblamed his murmuring voice\n      Might sound in Heaven, were all his second life\n   Only the first renewed\u2014the heathen\u2019s choice,\n      A round of listless joy and weary strife.\n\n   For dreary were this earth, if earth were all,\n      Tho\u2019 brightened oft by dear Affection\u2019s kiss;\u2014\n   Who for the spangles wears the funeral pall?\n      But catch a gleam beyond it, and \u2019tis bliss.\n\n   Heavy and dull this frame of limbs and heart,\n      Whether slow creeping on cold earth, or borne\n   On lofty steed, or loftier prow, we dart\n      O\u2019er wave or field: yet breezes laugh to scorn\n\n   Our puny speed, and birds, and clouds in heaven,\n      And fish, living shafts that pierce the main,\n   And stars that shoot through freezing air at even\u2014\n      Who but would follow, might he break his chain?\n\n   And thou shalt break it soon; the grovelling worm\n      Shall find his wings, and soar as fast and free\n   As his transfigured Lord with lightning form\n      And snowy vest\u2014such grace He won for thee,\n\n   When from the grave He sprang at dawn of morn,\n      And led through boundless air thy conquering road,\n   Leaving a glorious track, where saints, new-born,\n      Might fearless follow to their blest abode.\n\n   But first, by many a stern and fiery blast\n      The world\u2019s rude furnace must thy blood refine,\n   And many a gale of keenest woe be passed,\n      Till every pulse beat true to airs divine,\n\n   Till every limb obey the mounting soul,\n      The mounting soul, the call by Jesus given.\n   He who the stormy heart can so control,\n      The laggard body soon will waft to Heaven.\n\n\n\nTwenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    The heart knoweth his own bitterness: and a stranger doth not\n    intermeddle with his joy.  _Proverbs_ xiv. 10.\n\n   WHY should we faint and fear to live alone,\n      Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die,\n   Nor e\u2019en the tenderest heart, and next our own,\n      Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh?\n\n   Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe\n      Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart,\n   Our eyes see all around in gloom or glow\u2014\n      Hues of their own, fresh borrowed from the heart.\n\n   And well it is for us our GOD should feel\n      Alone our secret throbbings: so our prayer\n   May readier spring to Heaven, nor spend its zeal\n      On cloud-born idols of this lower air.\n\n   For if one heart in perfect sympathy\n      Beat with another, answering love for love,\n   Weak mortals, all entranced, on earth would lie,\n      Nor listen for those purer strains above.\n\n   Or what if Heaven for once its searching light\n      Lent to some partial eye, disclosing all\n   The rude bad thoughts, that in our bosom\u2019s night\n      Wander at large, nor heed Love\u2019s gentle thrall?\n\n   Who would not shun the dreary uncouth place?\n      As if, fond leaning where her infant slept,\n   A mother\u2019s arm a serpent should embrace:\n      So might we friendless live, and die unwept.\n\n   Then keep the softening veil in mercy drawn,\n      Thou who canst love us, thro\u2019 Thou read us true;\n   As on the bosom of th\u2019 a\u00ebrial lawn\n      Melts in dim haze each coarse ungentle hue.\n\n   So too may soothing Hope Thy heave enjoy\n      Sweet visions of long-severed hearts to frame:\n   Though absence may impair, or cares annoy,\n      Some constant mind may draw us still the same.\n\n   We in dark dreams are tossing to and fro,\n      Pine with regret, or sicken with despair,\n   The while she bathes us in her own chaste glow,\n      And with our memory wings her own fond prayer.\n\n   O bliss of child-like innocence, and love\n      Tried to old age! creative power to win,\n   And raise new worlds, where happy fancies rove,\n      Forgetting quite this grosser world of sin.\n\n   Bright are their dreams, because their thoughts are clear,\n      Their memory cheering: but th\u2019 earth-stained spright,\n   Whose wakeful musings are of guilt and fear,\n      Must hover nearer earth, and less in light.\n\n   Farewell, for her, th\u2019 ideal scenes so fair\u2014\n      Yet not farewell her hope, since thou hast deigned,\n   Creator of all hearts! to own and share\n      The woe of what Thou mad\u2019st, and we have stained.\n\n   Thou knowst our bitterness\u2014our joys are Thine\u2014\n      No stranger Thou to all our wanderings wild:\n   Nor could we bear to think, how every line\n      Of us, Thy darkened likeness and defiled,\n\n   Stands in full sunshine of Thy piercing eye,\n      But that Thou call\u2019st us Brethren: sweet repose\n   Is in that word\u2014the LORD who dwells on high\n      Knows all, yet loves us better than He knows.\n\n\n\nTwenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.\n\n\n    The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of\n    righteousness.  _Proverbs_ xvi. 31.\n\n   THE bright-haired morn is glowing\n      O\u2019er emerald meadows gay,\n   With many a clear gem strewing\n      The early shepherd\u2019s way.\n   Ye gentle elves, by Fancy seen\n      Stealing away with night\n   To slumber in your leafy screen,\n      Tread more than airy light.\n\n   And see what joyous greeting\n      The sun through heaven has shed,\n   Though fast yon shower be fleeting,\n      His beams have faster sped.\n   For lo! above the western haze\n      High towers the rainbow arch\n   In solid span of purest rays:\n      How stately is its march!\n\n   Pride of the dewy morning!\n      The swain\u2019s experienced eye\n   From thee takes timely warning,\n      Nor trusts the gorgeous sky.\n   For well he knows, such dawnings gay\n      Bring noons of storm and shower,\n   And travellers linger on the way\n      Beside the sheltering bower.\n\n   E\u2019en so, in hope and trembling\n      Should watchful shepherd view\n   His little lambs assembling,\n      With glance both kind and true;\n   \u2019Tis not the eye of keenest blaze,\n      Nor the quick-swelling breast,\n   That soonest thrills at touch of praise\u2014\n      These do not please him best.\n\n   But voices low and gentle,\n      And timid glances shy,\n   That seem for aid parental\n      To sue all wistfully,\n   Still pressing, longing to be right,\n      Yet fearing to be wrong,\u2014\n   In these the Pastor dares delight,\n      A lamb-like, Christ-like throng.\n\n   These in Life\u2019s distant even\n      Shall shine serenely bright,\n   As in th\u2019 autumnal heaven\n      Mild rainbow tints at night,\n   When the last shower is stealing down,\n      And ere they sink to rest,\n   The sun-beams weave a parting crown\n      For some sweet woodland nest.\n\n   The promise of the morrow\n      Is glorious on that eve,\n   Dear as the holy sorrow\n      When good men cease to live.\n   When brightening ere it die away\n      Mounts up their altar flame,\n   Still tending with intenser ray\n      To Heaven whence first it came.\n\n   Say not it dies, that glory,\n      \u2019Tis caught unquenched on high,\n   Those saintlike brows so hoary\n      Shall wear it in the sky.\n   No smile is like the smile of death,\n      When all good musings past\n   Rise wafted with the parting breath,\n      The sweetest thought the last.\n\n\n\nSunday next before Advent.\n\n\n    Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.  _St.\n    John_ vi. 12.\n\n      WILL God indeed with fragments bear,\n      Snatched late from the decaying year?\n      Or can the Saviour\u2019s blood endear\n         The dregs of a polluted life?\n      When down th\u2019 o\u2019erwhelming current tossed\n      Just ere he sink for ever lost,\n      The sailor\u2019s untried arms are crossed\n   In agonizing prayer, will Ocean cease her strife?\n\n      Sighs that exhaust but not relieve\n      Heart-rending sighs, O spare to heave\n      A bosom freshly taught to grieve\n         For lavished hours and love misspent!\n      Now through her round of holy thought\n      The Church our annual steps has brought,\n      But we no holy fire have caught\u2014\n   Back on the gaudy world our wilful eyes were bent.\n\n      Too soon th\u2019 ennobling carols, poured\n      To hymn the birth-night of the LORD,\n      Which duteous Memory should have stored\n         For thankful echoing all the year\u2014\n      Too soon those airs have passed away;\n      Nor long within the heart would stay\n      The silence of CHRIST\u2019S dying day,\n   Profaned by worldly mirth, or scared by worldly fear.\n\n      Some strain of hope and victory\n      On Easter wings might lift us high\n      A little while we sought the sky:\n         And when the SPIRIT\u2019S beacon fires\n      On every hill began to blare,\n      Lightening the world with glad amaze,\n      Who but must kindle while they gaze?\n   But faster than she soars, our earth-bound Fancy tires.\n\n      Nor yet for these, nor all the rites,\n      By which our Mother\u2019s voice invites\n      Our GOD to bless our home delights,\n         And sweeten every secret tear:\u2014\n      The funeral dirge, the marriage vow,\n      The hollowed font where parents bow,\n      And now elate and trembling now\n   To the Redeemer\u2019s feet their new-found treasures bear:\u2014\n\n      Not for this Pastor\u2019s gracious arm\n      Stretched out to bless\u2014a Christian charm\n      To dull the shafts of worldly harm:\u2014\n         Nor, sweetest, holiest, best of all\n      For the dear feast of JESUS dying,\n      Upon that altar ever lying,\n      Where souls with sacred hunger sighing\n   Are called to sit and eat, while angels prostrate fall:\u2014\n\n      No, not for each and all of these,\n      Have our frail spirits found their ease.\n      The gale that stirs the autumnal trees\n         Seems tuned as truly to our hearts\n      As when, twelve weary months ago,\n      \u2019Twas moaning bleak, so high and low,\n      You would have thought Remorse and Woe\n   Had taught the innocent air their sadly thrilling parts.\n\n      Is it, CHRIST\u2019S light is too divine,\n      We dare not hope like Him to shine?\n      But see, around His dazzling shrine\n         Earths gems the fire of Heaven have caught;\n      Martyrs and saints\u2014each glorious day\n      Dawning in order on our way\u2014\n      Remind us, how our darksome clay\n   May keep th\u2019 ethereal warmth our new Creator brought.\n\n      These we have scorned, O false and frail!\n      And now once more th\u2019 appalling tale,\n      How love divine may woo and fail,\n         Of our lost year in Heaven is told\u2014\n      What if as far our life were past,\n      Our weeks all numbered to the last,\n      With time and hope behind us cast,\n   And all our work to do with palsied hands and cold?\n\n      O watch and pray ere Advent dawn!\n      For thinner than the subtlest lawn\n      \u2019Twixt thee and death the veil is drawn.\n         But Love too late can never glow:\n      The scattered fragments Love can glean\n      Refine the dregs, and yield us clean\n      To regions where one thought serene\n   Breathes sweeter than whole years of sacrifice below.\n\n\n\nSt. Andrew\u2019s Day\n\n\n    He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have\n    found the Messias . . . And he brought him to Jesus.  _St. John_ i.\n    41, 42.\n\n   WHEN brothers part for manhood\u2019s race,\n      What gift may most endearing prove\n   To keep fond memory its her place,\n      And certify a brother\u2019s love?\n\n   \u2019Tis true, bright hours together told,\n      And blissful dreams in secret shared,\n   Serene or solemn, gay or bold,\n      Shall last in fancy unimpaired.\n\n   E\u2019en round the death-bed of the good\n      Such dear remembrances will hover,\n   And haunt us with no vexing mood\n      When all the cares of earth are over.\n\n   But yet our craving spirits feel,\n      We shall live on, though Fancy die,\n   And seek a surer pledge\u2014a seal\n      Of love to last eternally.\n\n   Who art thou, that wouldst grave thy name\n      Thus deeply in a brother\u2019s heart?\n   Look on this saint, and learn to frame\n      Thy love-charm with true Christian art.\n\n   First seek thy Saviour out, and dwell\n      Beneath this shadow of His roof,\n   Till thou have scanned His features well,\n      And known Him for the Christ by proof;\n\n   Such proof as they are sure to find\n      Who spend with Him their happy days,\n   Clean hands, and a self-ruling mind\n      Ever in tune for love and praise.\n\n   Then, potent with the spell of Heaven,\n      Go, and thine erring brother gain,\n   Entice him home to be forgiven,\n      Till he, too, see his Saviour plain.\n\n   Or, if before thee in the race,\n      Urge him with thine advancing tread,\n   Till, like twin stars, with even pace,\n      Each lucid course be duly aped.\n\n   No fading frail memorial give\n      To soothe his soul when thou art gone,\n   But wreaths of hope for aye to live,\n      And thoughts of good together done.\n\n   That so, before the judgment-seat,\n      Though changed and glorified each face,\n   Not unremembered ye may meet\n      For endless ages to embrace.\n\n\n\nSt. Thomas\u2019 Day.\n\n\n    Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed; blessed are\n    they that have not seen, and yet have believed.  _St. John_ xx. 29.\n\n      WE were not by when Jesus came,\n         But round us, far and near,\n      We see His trophies, and His name\n         In choral echoes hear.\n      In a fair ground our lot is cast,\n      As in the solemn week that past,\n      While some might doubt, but all adored,\n   Ere the whole widowed Church had seen her risen Lord.\n\n      Slowly, as then, His bounteous hand\n         The golden chain unwinds,\n      Drawing to Heaven with gentlest band\n         Wise hearts and loving minds.\n      Love sought Him first\u2014at dawn of morn\n      From her sad couch she sprang forlorn,\n      She sought to weep with Thee alone,\n   And saw Thine open grave, and knew that thou wert gone.\n\n      Reason and Faith at once set out\n         To search the SAVIOUR\u2019S tomb;\n      Faith faster runs, but waits without,\n         As fearing to presume,\n      Till Reason enter in, and trace\n      Christ\u2019s relics round the holy place\u2014\n      \u201cHere lay His limbs, and here His sacred head,\n   And who was by, to make His new-forsaken bed?\u201d\n\n      Both wonder, one believes\u2014but while\n         They muse on all at home,\n      No thought can tender Love beguile\n         From Jesus\u2019 grave to roam.\n      Weeping she stays till He appear\u2014\n      Her witness first the Church must hear\u2014\n      All joy to souls that can rejoice\n   With her at earliest call of His dear gracious voice.\n\n      Joy too to those, who love to talk\n         In secret how He died,\n      Though with sealed eyes awhile they walk,\n         Nor see him at their side:\n      Most like the faithful pair are they,\n      Who once to Emmaus took their way,\n      Half darkling, till their Master shied\n   His glory on their souls, made known in breaking bread.\n\n      Thus, ever brighter and more bright,\n         On those He came to save\n      The Lord of new-created light\n         Dawned gradual from the grave;\n      Till passed th\u2019 enquiring day-light hour,\n      And with closed door in silent bower\n      The Church in anxious musing sate,\n   As one who for redemption still had long to wait.\n\n      Then, gliding through th\u2019 unopening door,\n         Smooth without step or sound,\n      \u201cPeace to your souls,\u201d He said\u2014no more\u2014\n         They own Him, kneeling round.\n      Eye, ear, and hand, and loving heart,\n      Body and soul in every part,\n      Successive made His witnesses that hour,\n   Cease not in all the world to show His saving power.\n\n      Is there, on earth, a spirit frail,\n         Who fears to take their word,\n      Scarce daring, through the twilight pale,\n         To think he sees the Lord?\n      With eyes too tremblingly awake\n      To bear with dimness for His sake?\n      Read and confess the Hand Divine\n   That drew thy likeness here so true in every line.\n\n      For all thy rankling doubts so sore,\n         Love thou thy Saviour still,\n      Him for thy Lord and God adore,\n         And ever do His will.\n      Though vexing thoughts may seem to last,\n      Let not thy soul be quite o\u2019ercast;\u2014\n      Soon will He show thee all His wounds, and say,\n   \u201cLong have I known Thy name\u2014know thou My face alway.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe Conversion of St. Paul.\n\n\n    And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul,\n    Saul, why persecutest thou Me?  And he said, Who art Thou, Lord?  And\n    the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.  _Acts_ ix. 4, 5.\n\n   THE mid-day sun, with fiercest glare,\n   Broods o\u2019er the hazy twinkling air:\n      Along the level sand\n   The palm-tree\u2019s shade unwavering lies,\n   Just as thy towers, Damascus, rise\n      To greet you wearied band.\n\n   The leader of that martial crew\n   Seems bent some mighty deed to do,\n      So steadily he speeds,\n   With lips firm closed and fix\u00e8d eye,\n   Like warrior when the fight is night,\n      Nor talk nor landscape heeds.\n\n   What sudden blaze is round him poured,\n   As though all Heaven\u2019s refulgent hoard\n      In one rich glory shone?\n   One moment\u2014and to earth he falls:\n   What voice his inmost heart appalls?\u2014\n      Voice heard by him alone.\n\n   For to the rest both words and form\n   Seem lost in lightning and in storm,\n      While Saul, in wakeful trance,\n   Sees deep within that dazzling field\n   His persecuted Lord revealed,\n      With keen yet pitying glance:\n\n   And hears time meek upbraiding call\n   As gently on his spirit fall,\n      As if th\u2019 Almighty Son\n   Were prisoner yet in this dark earth,\n   Nor had proclaimed His royal birth,\n      Nor His great power begun.\n\n   \u201cAh! wherefore persecut\u2019st thou Me?\u201d\n   He heard and saw, and sought to free\n      His strained eyes from the sight:\n   But Heaven\u2019s high magic bound it there,\n   Still gazing, though untaught to bear\n      Th\u2019 insufferable light.\n\n   \u201cWho art Thou, Lord?\u201d he falters forth:\u2014\n   So shall Sin ask of heaven and earth\n      At the last awful day.\n   \u201cWhen did we see Thee suffering nigh,\n   And passed Thee with unheeding eye?\n      Great God of judgment, say!\u201d\n\n   Ah! little dream our listless eyes\n   What glorious presence they despise,\n      While, in our noon of life,\n   To power or fame we rudely press.\u2014\n   Christ is at hand, to scorn or bless,\n      Christ suffers in our strife.\n\n   And though heaven\u2019s gate long since have closed,\n   And our dear Lord in bliss reposed,\n      High above mortal ken,\n   To every ear in every land\n   (Thought meek ears only understand)\n      He speaks as he did then.\n\n   \u201cAh! wherefore persecute ye Me?\n   \u2019Tis hard, ye so in love should be\n      With your own endless woe.\n   Know, though at God\u2019s right hand I live,\n   I feel each wound ye reckless give\n      To the least saint below.\n\n   \u201cI in your care My brethren left,\n   Not willing ye should be bereft\n      Of waiting on your Lord.\n   The meanest offering ye can make\u2014\n   A drop of water\u2014for love\u2019s sake,\n      In Heaven, be sure, is stored.\u201d\n\n   O by those gentle tones and dear,\n   When thou hast stayed our wild career,\n      Thou only hope of souls,\n   Ne\u2019er let us cast one look behind,\n   But in the thought of Jesus find\n      What every thought controls.\n\n   As to Thy last Apostle\u2019s heart\n   Thy lightning glance did then impart\n      Zeal\u2019s never-dying fire,\n   So teach us on Thy shrine to lay\n   Our hearts, and let them day by day\n      Intenser blaze and higher.\n\n   And as each mild and winning note\n   (Like pulses that round harp-strings float\n      When the full strain is o\u2019er)\n   Left lingering on his inward ear\n   Music, that taught, as death drew near,\n      Love\u2019s lesson more and more:\n\n   So, as we walk our earthly round,\n   Still may the echo of that sound\n      Be in our memory stored\n   \u201cChristians! behold your happy state:\n   Christ is in these, who round you wait;\n      Make much of your dear Lord!\u201d\n\n\n\nThe Purification.\n\n\n    Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.  _St. Matthew_\n    v. 8.\n\n      BLESS\u2019D are the pure in heart,\n      For they shall see our God,\n   The secret of the Lord is theirs,\n      Their soul is Christ\u2019s abode.\n\n      Might mortal thought presume\n      To guess an angel\u2019s lay,\n   Such are the notes that echo through\n      The courts of Heaven to-day.\n\n      Such the triumphal hymns\n      On Sion\u2019s Prince that wait,\n   In high procession passing on\n      Towards His temple-gate.\n\n      Give ear, ye kings\u2014bow down,\n      Ye rulers of the earth\u2014\n   This, this is He: your Priest by grace,\n      Your God and King by birth.\n\n      No pomp of earthly guards\n      Attends with sword and spear,\n   And all-defying, dauntless look,\n      Their monarch\u2019s way to clear;\n\n      Yet are there more with Him\n      Than all that are with you\u2014\n   The armies of the highest Heaven,\n      All righteous, good, and true.\n\n      Spotless their robes and pure,\n      Dipped in the sea of light,\n   That hides the unapproach\u00e8d shrine\n      From men\u2019s and angels\u2019 sight.\n\n      His throne, thy bosom blest,\n      O mother undefiled\u2014\n   That throne, if aught beneath the skies,\n      Beseems the sinless child.\n\n      Lost in high thoughts, \u201cwhose son\n      The wondrous Babe might prove,\u201d\n   Her guileless husband walks beside,\n      Bearing the hallowed dove;\n\n      Meet emblem of His vow,\n      Who, on this happy day,\n   His dove-like soul\u2014best sacrifice\u2014\n      Did on God\u2019s altar lay.\n\n      But who is he, by years\n      Bowed, but erect in heart,\n   Whose prayers are struggling with his tears?\n      \u201cLord, let me now depart.\n\n      \u201cNow hath Thy servant seen\n      Thy saving health, O Lord;\n   \u2019Tis time that I depart in peace,\n      According to Thy word.\u201d\n\n      Yet swells this pomp: one more\n      Comes forth to bless her God;\n   Full fourscore years, meek widow, she\n      Her heaven-ward way hath troth.\n\n      She who to earthly joys\n      So long had given farewell,\n   Now sees, unlooked for, Heaven on earth,\n      Christ in His Israel.\n\n      Wide open from that hour\n      The temple-gates are set,\n   And still the saints rejoicing there\n      The holy Child have met.\n\n      Now count His train to-day,\n      Auth who may meet Him, learn:\n   Him child-like sires, meek maidens find,\n      Where pride can nought discern.\n\n      Still to the lowly soul\n      He doth Himself impart,\n   And for His cradle and His throne\n      Chooseth the pure in heart.\n\n\n\nSt. Matthias\u2019 Day.\n\n\n    Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that\n    the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism\n    of John, unto the same day that He was taken up from us, must one be\n    ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.  _Acts_ i. 21,\n    22.\n\n         WHO is God\u2019s chosen priest?\n   He, who on Christ stands waiting day and night,\n   Who traceth His holy steps, nor ever ceased,\n      From Jordan banks to Bethphage height:\n\n         Who hath learned lowliness\n   From his Lord\u2019s cradle, patience from His Cross;\n   Whom poor men\u2019s eyes and hearts consent to bless;\n      To whom, for Christ, the world is loss;\n\n         Who both in agony\n   Hath seen Him and in glory; and in both\n   Owned Him divine, and yielded, nothing loth,\n      Body and soul, to live and die,\n\n         In witness of his Lord,\n   In humble following of his Saviour dear:\n   This is the man to wield th\u2019 unearthly sword,\n      Warring unharmed with sin and fear.\n\n         But who can o\u2019er suffice\u2014\n   What mortal\u2014for this more than angels\u2019 task,\n   Winning or losing souls, Thy life-blood\u2019s price?\n      The gift were too divine to ask.\n\n         But Thou hast made it sure\n   By Thy dear promise to thy Church and Bride,\n   That Thou, on earth, wouldst aye with her endure,\n      Till earth to Heaven be purified.\n\n         Thou art her only spouse,\n   Whose arm supports her, on Whose faithful breast\n   Her persecuted head she meekly bows,\n      Sure pledge of her eternal rest.\n\n         Thou, her unerring guide,\n   Stayest her fainting steps along the wild;\n   Thy merit is on the bowers of lust and pride,\n      That she may pass them undefiled.\n\n         Who then, uncalled by Thee,\n   Dare touch Thy spouse, Thy very self below?\n   Or who dare count him summoned worthily,\n      Except Thine hand and seal he show?\n\n         Where can Thy seal be found,\n   But on thou chosen seed, from age to age\n   By thine anointed heralds duly crowned,\n      As kings and priests Thy war to wage?\n\n         Then fearless walk we forth,\n   Yet full of trembling, Messengers of God:\n   Our warrant sure, but doubting of our worth,\n      By our own shame alike and glory awed.\n\n         Dread Searcher of the hearts,\n   Thou who didst seal by Thy descending Dove\n   Thy servant\u2019s choice, O help us in our parts,\n      Else helpless found, to learn and teach Thy love.\n\n\n\nThe Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.\n\n\n    And the Angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly\n    favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.\n\n                                                         _St. Luke_ i. 28.\n\n   OH! Thou who deign\u2019st to sympathise\n   With all our frail and fleshly ties,\n      Maker yet Brother dear,\n   Forgive the too presumptuous thought,\n   If, calming wayward grief, I sought\n      To gaze on Thee too near.\n\n   Yet sure \u2019twas not presumption, Lord,\n   \u2019Twas Thine own comfortable word\n      That made the lesson known:\n   Of all the dearest bonds we prove,\n   Thou countest sons and mothers\u2019 love\n      Most sacred, most Thine own.\n\n   When wandering here a little span,\n   Thou took\u2019st on Thee to rescue man,\n      Thou had\u2019st no earthly sire:\n   That wedded love we prize so dear,\n   As if our heaven and home were here,\n      It lit in Thee no fire.\n\n   On no sweet sister\u2019s faithful breast\n   Wouldst Thou Thine aching forehead rest,\n      On no kind brother lean:\n   But who, O perfect filial heart,\n   E\u2019er did like Thee a true son\u2019s part,\n      Endearing, firm, serene?\n\n   Thou wept\u2019st, meek maiden, mother mild,\n   Thou wept\u2019st upon thy sinless Child,\n      Thy very heart was riven:\n   And yet, what mourning matron here\n   Would deem thy sorrows bought too dear\n      By all on this side Heaven?\n\n   A Son that never did amiss,\n   That never shamed His Mother\u2019s kiss,\n      Nor crossed her fondest prayer:\n   E\u2019en from the tree He deigned to bow,\n   For her His agonised brow,\n      Her, His sole earthly care.\n\n   Ave Maria! bless\u00e8d Maid!\n   Lily of Eden\u2019s fragrant shade,\n      Who can express the love\n   That nurtured thee so pure and sweet,\n   Making thy heart a shelter meet\n      For Jesus\u2019 holy dove?\n\n   Ave Maria!  Mother blest,\n   To whom, caressing and caressed,\n      Clings the eternal Child;\n   Favoured beyond Archangels\u2019 dream,\n   When first on Thee with tenderest gleam\n      Thy new-born Saviour smiled:\u2014\n\n   Ave Maria! thou whose name\n   All but adoring love may claim,\n      Yet may we reach thy shrine;\n   For He, thy Son and Saviour, vows\n   To crown all lowly lofty brows\n      With love and joy like thine.\n\n   Blessed is the womb that bare Him\u2014blessed\n   The bosom where His lips were pressed,\n      But rather blessed are they\n   Who hear His word and keep it well,\n   The living homes where Christ shall dwell,\n      And never pass away.\n\n\n\nSt. Mark\u2019s Day.\n\n\n    And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed\n    asunder one from the other.  _Acts_ xv. 30.\n\n    Compare 2 _Tim._ iv. 11.  Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he\n    is profitable to me for the ministry.\n\n   OH! who shall dare in this frail scene\n   On holiest happiest thoughts to lean,\n      On Friendship, Kindred, or on Love?\n   Since not Apostles\u2019 hands can clasp\n   Each other in so firm a grasp\n      But they shall change and variance prove.\n\n   Yet deem not, on such parting sad\n   Shall dawn no welcome dear and glad:\n      Divided in their earthly race,\n   Together at the glorious goal,\n   Each leading many a rescued soul,\n      The faithful champions shall embrace.\n\n   For e\u2019en as those mysterious Four,\n   Who the bright whirling wheels upbore\n      By Chebar in the fiery blast.\n   So, on their tasks of love and praise\n   This saints of God their several ways\n      Right onward speed, yet join at last.\n\n   And sometimes e\u2019en beneath the moon\n   The Saviour gives a gracious boon,\n      When reconcil\u00e8d Christians meet,\n   And face to face, and heart to heart,\n   High thoughts of holy love impart\n      In silence meek, or converse sweet.\n\n   Companion of the Saints! \u2019twas thine\n   To taste that drop of peace divine,\n      When the great soldier of thy Lord\n   Called thee to take his last farewell,\n   Teaching the Church with joy to tell\n      The story of your love restored.\n\n   O then the glory and the bliss,\n   When all that pained or seemed amiss\n      Shall melt with earth and sin away!\n   When saints beneath their Saviour\u2019s eye,\n   Filled with each other\u2019s company,\n      Shall spend in love th\u2019 eternal day!\n\n\n\nSt. Philip and St. James.\n\n\n    Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the\n    rich in that he is made low.  _St. James_ i. 9. 10.\n\n   DEAR is the morning gale of spring,\n      And dear th\u2019 autumnal eve;\n   But few delights can summer bring\n      A Poet\u2019s crown to weave.\n\n   Her bowers are mute, her fountains dry,\n      And ever Fancy\u2019s wing\n   Speed\u2019s from beneath her cloudless sky\n      To autumn or to spring.\n\n   Sweet is the infant\u2019s waking smile,\n      And sweet the old man\u2019s rest\u2014\n   But middle age by no fond wile,\n      No soothing calm is blest.\n\n   Still in the world\u2019s hot restless gleam\n      She plies her weary task,\n   While vainly for some pleasant dream\n      Her wandering glances ask.\u2014\n\n   O shame upon thee, listless heart,\n      So sad a sigh to heave,\n   As if thy SAVIOUR had no part\n      In thoughts, that make thee grieve.\n\n   As if along His lonesome way\n      He had not borne for thee\n   Sad languors through the summer day,\n      Storms on the wintry sea.\n\n   Youth\u2019s lightning flash of joy secure\n      Passed seldom o\u2019er His spright,\u2014\n   A well of serious thought and pure.\n      Too deep for earthly light.\n\n   No spring was His\u2014no fairy gleam\u2014\n      For He by trial knew\n   How cold and bare what mortals dream,\n      To worlds where all is true.\n\n   Then grudge not thou the anguish keen\n      Which makes thee like thy LORD,\n   And learn to quit with eye serene\n      Thy youth\u2019s ideal hoard.\n\n   Thy treasured hopes and raptures high\u2014\n      Unmurmuring let them go,\n   Nor grieve the bliss should quickly fly\n      Which CHRIST disdained to know.\n\n   Thou shalt have joy in sadness soon;\n      The pure, calm hope be thine,\n   Which brightens, like the eastern moon,\n      As day\u2019s wild lights decline.\n\n   Thus souls, by nature pitched too high,\n      By sufferings plunged too low,\n   Meet in the Church\u2019s middle sky,\n      Half way \u2019twixt joy and woe,\n\n   To practise there the soothing lay\n      That sorrow best relieves;\n   Thankful for all God takes away,\n      Humbled by all He glass.\n\n\n\nSt. Barnabas.\n\n\n    The sea of consolation, a Levite.  _Acts_ iv. 36.\n\n      THE world\u2019s a room of sickness, where each heart\n         Knows its own anguish and unrest;\n      The truest wisdom there, and noblest art,\n         Is his, who skills of comfort best;\n      Whom by the softest step and gentlest tone\n            Enfeebled spirits own,\n         And love to raise the languid eye,\n   When, like an angel\u2019s wing, they feel him fleeting by:\u2014\n\n      _Feel_ only\u2014for in silence gently gliding\n         Fain would he shun both ear and sight,\n      \u2019Twixt Prayer and watchful Love his heart dividing,\n         A nursing-father day and night.\n      Such were the tender arms, where cradled lay,\n            In her sweet natal day,\n         The Church of JESUS; such the love\n   He to His chosen taught for His dear widowed Dove.\n\n      Warmed underneath the Comforter\u2019s safe wing\n         They spread th\u2019 endearing warmth around:\n      Mourners, speed here your broken hearts to bring,\n         Here healing dews and balms abound:\n      Here are soft hands that cannot bless in vain,\n            By trial taught your pain:\n         Here loving hearts, that daily know\n   The heavenly consolations they on you bestow.\n\n      Sweet thoughts are theirs, that breathe serenest calms,\n         Of holy offerings timely paid,\n      Of fire from heaven to bless their votive alms\n         And passions on GOD\u2019S altar laid.\n      The world to them is closed, and now they shine\n            With rays of love divine,\n         Through darkest nooks of this dull earth\n   Pouring, in showery times, their glow of \u201cquiet mirth.\u201d\n\n      New hearts before their Saviour\u2019s feet to lay,\n         This is their first, their dearest joy:\n      Their next from heart to heart to clear the way\n         For mutual love without alloy:\n      Never so blest as when in JESUS\u2019 roll\n            They write some hero-soul,\n         More pleased upon his brightening road\n   To wait, than if their own with all his radiance glowed.\n\n      O happy spirits, marked by God and man\n         Their messages of love to bear,\n      What though long since in Heaven your brows began,\n         The genial amarant wreath to wear,\n      And in th\u2019 eternal leisure of calm love\n            Ye banquet there above;\n         Yet in your sympathetic heart\n   We and our earthly griefs may ask and hope a part.\n\n      Comfort\u2019s true sons! amid the thoughts of down\n         That strew your pillow of repose,\n      Sure \u2019tis one joy to muse, how ye unknown\n         By sweet remembrance soothe our woes;\n      And how the spark ye lit, of heavenly cheer,\n            Lives in our embers here,\n         Where\u2019er the cross is borne with smiles,\n   Or lightened secretly by Love\u2019s endearing wiles:\n\n      Where\u2019er one Levite in the temple keeps\n         The watch-fire of his midnight prayer,\n      Or issuing thence, the eyes of mourners steeps\n         In heavenly balm, fresh gathered there;\n      Thus saints, that seem to die in earth\u2019s rude strife,\n            Only win double life:\n         They have but left our weary ways\n   To live in memory here, in Heaven by love and praise.\n\n\n\nSt. John Baptist\u2019s Day.\n\n\n    Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the\n    great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of\n    the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their\n    fathers.  _Malachi_ iv. 5, 6.\n\n         TWICE in her season of decay\n   The fallen Church hath felt Elijah\u2019s eye\n         Dart from the wild its piercing ray:\n   Not keener burns, in the chill morning sky,\n            The herald star,\n            Whose torch afar\n      Shadows and boding night-birds fly.\n\n         Methinks we need him once again,\n   That favoured seer\u2014but where shall he be found?\n         By Cherith\u2019s side we seek in vain,\n   In vain on Carmel\u2019s green and lonely mound:\n            Angels no more\n            From Sinai soar,\n      On his celestial errands bound.\n\n         But wafted to her glorious place\n   By harmless fire, among the ethereal thrones,\n         His spirit with a dear embrace\n   Thee the loved harbinger of Jesus owns,\n            Well-pleased to view\n            Her likeness true,\n      And trace, in thine, her own deep tones.\n\n         Deathless himself, he joys with thee\n   To commune how a faithful martyr dies,\n         And in the blest could envy be,\n   He would behold thy wounds with envious eyes,\n            Star of our morn,\n            Who yet unborn\n      Didst guide our hope, where Christ should rise.\n\n         Now resting from your jealous care\n   For sinners, such as Eden cannot know,\n         Ye pour for us your mingled prayer,\n   No anxious fear to damp Affection\u2019s glow,\n            Love draws a cloud\n            From you to shroud\n      Rebellion\u2019s mystery here below.\n\n         And since we see, and not afar,\n   The twilight of the great and dreadful day,\n         Why linger, till Elijah\u2019s car\n   Stoop from the clouds?  Why sheep ye?  Rise and pray,\n            Ye heralds sealed\n            In camp or field\n      Your Saviour\u2019s banner to display.\n\n         Where is the lore the Baptist taught,\n   The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue?\n         The much-enduring wisdom, sought\n   By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among?\n            Who counts it gain\n            His light should wane,\n      So the whole world to Jesus throng?\n\n         Thou Spirit, who the Church didst lend\n   Her eagle wings, to shelter in the wild,\n         We pray Thee, ere the Judge descend,\n   With flames like these, all bright and undefiled,\n            Her watch-fires light,\n            To guide aright\n      Our weary souls by earth beguiled.\n\n         So glorious let thy Pastors shine,\n   That by their speaking lives the world may learn\n         First filial duty, then divine,\n   That sons to parents, all to Thee may turn;\n            And ready prove\n            In fires of love,\n      At sight of Thee, for aye to burn.\n\n\n\nSt. Peter\u2019s Day.\n\n\n    When Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was\n    sleeping.  _Acts_ xii. 26.\n\n   THOU thrice denied, yet thrice beloved,\n      Watch by Thine own forgiven friend;\n   In sharpest perils faithful proved,\n      Let his soul love Thee to the end.\n\n   The prayer is heard\u2014else why so deep\n      His slumber on the eve of death?\n   And wherefore smiles he in his sleep\n      As one who drew celestial breath?\n\n   He loves and is beloved again\u2014\n      Can his soul choose but be at rest?\n   Sorrow hath fled away, and Pain\n      Dares not invade the guarded nest.\n\n   He dearly loves, and not alone:\n      For his winged thoughts are soaring high\n   Where never yet frail heart was known\n      To breathe its vain Affection\u2019s sigh.\n\n   He loves and weeps\u2014but more than tears\n      Have sealed Thy welcome and his love\u2014\n   One look lives in him, and endears\n      Crosses and wrongs where\u2019er he rove:\n\n   That gracious chiding look, Thy call\n      To win him to himself and Thee,\n   Sweetening the sorrow of his fall\n      Which else were rued too bitterly.\n\n   E\u2019en through the veil of sheep it shines,\n      The memory of that kindly glance;\u2014\n   The Angel watching by, divines\n      And spares awhile his blissful trance.\n\n   Or haply to his native lake\n      His vision wafts him back, to talk\n   With JESUS, ere His flight He take,\n      As in that solemn evening walk,\n\n   When to the bosom of His friend,\n      The Shepherd, He whose name is Good.\n   Did His dear lambs and sheep commend,\n      Both bought and nourished with His blood:\n\n   Then laid on him th\u2019 inverted tree,\n      Which firm embraced with heart and arm,\n   Might cast o\u2019er hope and memory,\n      O\u2019er life and death, its awful charm.\n\n   With brightening heart he bears it on,\n      His passport through this eternal gates,\n   To his sweet home\u2014so nearly won,\n      He seems, as by the door he waits,\n\n   The unexpressive notes to hear\n      Of angel song and angel motion,\n   Rising and falling on the ear\n      Like waves in Joy\u2019s unbounded ocean.\u2014\n\n   His dream is changed\u2014the Tyrant\u2019s voice\n      Calls to that last of glorious deeds\u2014\n   But as he rises to rejoice,\n      Not Herod but an Angel leads.\n\n   He dreams he sees a lamp flash bright,\n      Glancing around his prison room\u2014\n   But \u2019tis a gleam of heavenly light\n      That fills up all the ample gloom.\n\n   The flame, that in a few short years\n      Deep through the chambers of the dead\n   Shall pierce, and dry the fount of tears,\n      Is waving o\u2019er his dungeon-bed.\n\n   Touched he upstarts\u2014his chains unbind\u2014\n      Through darksome vault, up massy stair,\n   His dizzy, doubting footsteps wind\n      To freedom and cool moonlight air.\n\n   Then all himself, all joy and calm,\n      Though for a while his hand forego,\n   Just as it touched, the martyr\u2019s palm,\n      He turns him to his task below;\n\n   The pastoral staff, the keys of Heaven,\n      To wield a while in grey-haired might,\n   Then from his cross to spring forgiven,\n      And follow JESUS out of sight.\n\n\n\nSt. James\u2019s Day.\n\n\n    Ye shall drink indeed of My cup, and be baptised with the baptism\n    that I am baptised with: but to sit on My right hand, and on My left,\n    is not Mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is\n    prepared of My Father.  _St. Matthew_ xx. 23.\n\n   SIT down and take thy fill of joy\n      At God\u2019s right hand, a bidden guest,\n   Drink of the cup that cannot cloy,\n      Eat of the bread that cannot waste.\n   O great Apostle! rightly now\n      Thou readest all thy Saviour meant,\n   What time His grave yet gentle brow\n      In sweet reproof on thee was bent.\n\n   \u201cSeek ye to sit enthroned by me?\n      Alas! ye know not what ye ask,\n   The first in shame and agony,\n      The lowest in the meanest task\u2014\n   This can ye be? and came ye drink\n      The cup that I in tears must steep,\n   Nor from the \u2019whelming waters shrink\n      That o\u2019er Me roll so dark and deep?\u201d\n\n   \u201cWe can\u2014Thine are we, dearest Lord,\n      In glory and in agony,\n   To do and suffer all Thy word;\n      Only be Thou for ever nigh.\u201d\u2014\n   \u201cThen be it so\u2014My cup receive,\n      And of My woes baptismal taste:\n   But for the crown, that angels weave\n      For those next Me in glory placed,\n\n   \u201cI give it not by partial love;\n      But in My Father\u2019s book are writ\n   What names on earth shall lowliest prove,\n      That they in Heaven may highest sit.\u201d\n   Take up the lesson, O my heart;\n      Thou Lord of meekness, write it there,\n   Thine own meek self to me impart,\n      Thy lofty hope, thy lowly prayer.\n\n   If ever on the mount with Thee\n      I seem to soar in vision bright,\n   With thoughts of coming agony,\n      Stay Thou the too presumptuous flight:\n   Gently along the vale of tears\n      Lead me from Tabor\u2019s sunbright steep,\n   Let me not grudge a few short years\n      With thee t\u2019ward Heaven to walk and weep:\n\n   Too happy, on my silent path,\n      If now and then allowed, with Thee\n   Watching some placid holy death,\n      Thy secret work of love to see;\n   But, oh! most happy, should Thy call,\n      Thy welcome call, at last be given\u2014\n   \u201cCome where thou long hast storeth thy all\n      Come see thy place prepared in Heaven.\u201d\n\n\n\nSt. Bartholomew.\n\n\n    Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw the\n    under the fig-tree, believest thou?  Thou shalt see greater things\n    than these.  _St. John_ i. 50.\n\n   HOLD up thy mirror to the sun,\n      And thou shalt need an eagle\u2019s gaze,\n   So perfectly the polished stone\n      Gives back the glory of his rays:\n\n   Turn it, and it shall paint as true\n      The soft green of the vernal earth,\n   And each small flower of bashful hue,\n      That closest hides its lowly birth.\n\n   Our mirror is a bless\u00e8d book,\n      Where out from each illumined page\n   We see one glorious Image look\n      All eyes to dazzle and engage,\n\n   The Son of God: and that indeed\n      We see Him as He is, we know,\n   Since in the same bright glass we read\n      The very life of things below.\u2014\n\n   Eye of God\u2019s word! where\u2019er we turn\n      Ever upon us! thy keen gaze\n   Can all the depths of sin discern,\n      Unravel every bosom\u2019s maze:\n\n   Who that has felt thy glance of dread\n      Thrill through his heart\u2019s remotest cells,\n   About his path, about his bed,\n      Can doubt what spirit in thee dwells?\n\n   \u201cWhat word is this?  Whence know\u2019st thou me?\u201d\n      All wondering cries the humbled heart,\n   To hear thee that deep mystery,\n      The knowledge of itself, impart.\n\n   The veil is raised; who runs may read,\n      By its own light the truth is seen,\n   And soon the Israelite indeed\n      Bows down t\u2019 adore the Nazarene.\n\n   So did Nathanael, guileless man,\n      At once, not shame-faced or afraid,\n   Owning Him God, who so could scan\n      His musings in the lonely shade;\n\n   In his own pleasant fig-tree\u2019s shade,\n      Which by his household fountain grew,\n   Where at noon-day his prayer he made\n      To know God better than he knew.\n\n   Oh! happy hours of heavenward thought!\n      How richly crowned! how well improved!\n   In musing o\u2019er the Law he taught,\n      In waiting for the Lord he loved.\n\n   We must not mar with earthly praise\n      What God\u2019s approving word hath sealed:\n   Enough, if might our feeble lays\n      Take up the promise He revealed;\n\n   \u201cThe child-like faith, that asks not sight,\n      Waits not for wonder or for sign,\n   Believes, because it loves, aright\u2014\n      Shall see things greater, things divine.\n\n   \u201cHeaven to that gaze shall open wide,\n      And brightest angels to and fro\n   On messages of love shall glide\n      \u2019Twixt God above and Christ below.\u201d\n\n   So still the guileless man is blest,\n      To him all crooked paths are straight,\n   Him on his way to endless rest\n      Fresh, ever-growing strengths await.\n\n   God\u2019s witnesses, a glorious host,\n      Compass him daily like a cloud;\n   Martyrs and seers, the saved and lost,\n      Mercies and judgments cry aloud.\n\n   Yet shall to him the still small voice,\n      That first into his bosom found\n   A way, and fixed his wavering choice,\n      Nearest and dearest ever sound.\n\n\n\nSt. Matthew.\n\n\n    And after these things He went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi,\n    sitting at the receipt of custom: and He said unto him, Follow Me.\n    And he left all, rose up, and followed Him.  _St. Luke_ v. 27, 28.\n\n         YE hermits blest, ye holy maids,\n            The nearest Heaven on earth,\n         Who talk with God in shadowy glades,\n            Free from rude care and mirth;\n         To whom some viewless teacher brings\n         The secret lore of rural things,\n      The moral of each fleeting cloud and gale,\n   The whispers from above, that haunt the twilight vale:\n\n         Say, when in pity ye have gazed\n            On the wreathed smoke afar,\n         That o\u2019er some town, like mist upraised,\n            Hung hiding sun and star,\n         Then as ye turned your weary eye\n         To the green earth and open sky,\n      Were ye not fain to doubt how Faith could dwell\n   Amid that dreary glare, in this world\u2019s citadel?\n\n         But Love\u2019s a flower that will not die\n            For lack of leafy screen,\n         And Christian Hope can cheer the eye\n            That ne\u2019er saw vernal green;\n         Then be ye sure that Love can bless\n         E\u2019en in this crowded loneliness,\n      Where ever-moving myriads seem to say,\n   Go\u2014thou art naught to us, nor we to thee\u2014away!\n\n         There are in this loud stunning tide\n            Of human care and crime,\n         With whom the melodies abide\n            Of th\u2019 everlasting chime;\n         Who carry music in their heart\n         Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,\n      Plying their daily task with busier feet,\n   Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.\n\n         How sweet to them, in such brief rest\n            As thronging cares afford,\n         In thought to wander, fancy-blest,\n            To where their gracious Lord,\n         In vain, to win proud Pharisees,\n         Spake, and was heard by fell disease\u2014\n      But not in vain, beside yon breezy lake,\n   Bade the meek Publican his gainful seat forsake:\n\n         At once he rose, and left his gold;\n            His treasure and his heart\n         Transferred, where he shall safe behold\n            Earth and her idols part;\n         While he beside his endless store\n         Shall sit, and floods unceasing pour\n      Of Christ\u2019s true riches o\u2019er all time and space,\n   First angel of His Church, first steward of His Grace.\n\n         Nor can ye not delight to think\n            Where He vouchsafed to eat,\n         How the Most Holy did not shrink\n            From touch of sinner\u2019s meat;\n         What worldly hearts and hearts impure\n         Went with Him through the rich man\u2019s door,\n      That we might learn of Him lost souls to love,\n   And view His least and worst with hope to meet above.\n\n         These gracious lines shed Gospel light\n            On Mammon\u2019s gloomiest cells,\n         As on some city\u2019s cheerless night\n            The tide of sunrise swells,\n         Till tower, and dome, and bridge-way proud\n         Are mantled with a golden cloud,\n      And to wise hearts this certain hope us given;\n   \u201cNo mist that man may raise, shall hide the eye of Heaven.\u201d\n\n         And oh! if e\u2019en on Babel shine\n            Such gleams of Paradise,\n         Should not their peace be peace divine,\n            Who day by day arise\n         To look on clearer heavens, and scan\n         The work of God untouch\u2019d by man?\n      Shame on us, who about us Babel bear,\n   And live in Paradise, as if God was not there!\n\n\n\nSt. Michael and All Angels.\n\n\n    Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them\n    who shall be heirs of salvation?  _Hebrews_ i. 14.\n\n   YE stars that round the Sun of righteousness\n      In glorious order roll,\n   With harps for ever strung, ready to bless\n      God for each rescued soul,\n   Ye eagle spirits, that build in light divine,\n      Oh! think of us to-day,\n   Faint warblers of this earth, that would combine\n   Our trembling notes with your accepted lay.\n\n   Your amarant wreaths were earned; and homeward all,\n      Flush\u2019d with victorious might,\n   Ye might have sped to keep high festival,\n      And revel in the light;\n   But meeting us, weak worldlings, on our way,\n      Tired ere the fight begun,\n   Ye turned to help us in th\u2019 unequal fray,\n   Remembering Whose we were, how dearly won:\n\n   Remembering Bethlehem, and that glorious night\n      When ye, who used to soar\n   Diverse along all space in fiery flight,\n      Came thronging to adore\n   Your God new-born, and made a sinner\u2019s child;\n      As if the stars should leave\n   Their stations in the far ethereal wild,\n   And round the sun a radiant circle weave.\n\n   Nor less your lay of triumph greeted fair\n      Our Champion and your King,\n   In that first strife, whence Satan in despair\n      Sunk down on scath\u00e8d wing:\n   Abuse He fasted, and alone He fought;\n      But when His toils were o\u2019er,\n   Ye to the sacred Hermit duteous brought\n   Banquet and hymn, your Eden\u2019s festal store.\n\n   Ye too, when lowest in th\u2019 abyss of woe\n      He plunged to save His sheep,\n   Were leaning from your golden thrones to know\n      The secrets of that deep:\n   But clouds were on His sorrow: one alone\n      His agonising call\n   Summoned from Heaven, to still that bitterest groan,\n   And comfort Him, the Comforter of all.\n\n   Oh! highest favoured of all Spirits create\n      (If right of thee we deem),\n   How didst thou glide on brightening wing elate\n      To meet th\u2019 unclouded beam\n   Of Jesus from the couch of darkness rising!\n      How swelled thine anthem\u2019s sound,\n   With fear and mightier joy weak hearts surprising,\n   \u201cYour God is risen, and may not here be found!\u201d\n\n   Pass a few days, and this dull darkling globe\n      Must yield Him from her sight;\u2014\n   Brighter and brighter streams His glory-robe,\n      And He is lost in light.\n   Then, when through yonder everlasting arch,\n      Ye in innumerous choir\n   Poured, heralding Messiah\u2019s conquering march,\n   Lingered around His skirts two forms of fire:\n\n   With us they stayed, high warning to impart;\n      \u201cThe Christ shall come again\n   E\u2019en as He goes; with the same human heart,\n      With the same godlike train.\u201d\u2014\n   Oh! jealous God! how could a sinner dare\n      Think on that dreadful day,\n   But that with all Thy wounds Thou wilt be there,\n   And all our angel friends to bring Thee on Thy way?\n\n   Since to Thy little ones is given such grace,\n      That they who nearest stand\n   Alway to God in Heaven, and see His face,\n      Go forth at His command,\n   To wait around our path in weal or woe,\n      As erst upon our King,\n   Set Thy baptismal seal upon our brow,\n   And waft us heavenward with enfolding wing:\n\n   Grant.  Lord, that when around th\u2019 expiring world\n      Our seraph guardians wait,\n   While on her death-bed, ere to ruin hurled,\n      She owns Thee, all too late,\n   They to their charge may turn, and thankful see\n      Thy mark upon us still;\n   Then all together rise, and reign with Thee,\n   And all their holy joy o\u2019er contrite hearts fulfil!\n\n\n\nSt. Luke.\n\n\n    Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.  _Colossians_ iv.\n    14.\n\n    Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world . . . Only\n    Luke is with me.  2 _Timothy_ iv. 10, 11.\n\n   TWO clouds before the summer gale\n      In equal race fleet o\u2019er the sky:\n   Two flowers, when wintry blasts assail,\n      Together pins, together die.\n\n   But two capricious human hearts\u2014\n      No sage\u2019s rod may track their ways.\n   No eye pursue their lawless starts\n      Along their wild self-chosen maze.\n\n   He only, by whose sovereign hand\n      E\u2019en sinners for the evil day\n   Were made\u2014who rules the world He planned,\n      Turning our worst His own good way;\n\n   He only can the cause reveal,\n      Why, at the same fond bosom fed,\n   Taught in the self-same lap to kneel\n      Till the same prayer were duly said,\n\n   Brothers in blood and nurture too,\n      Aliens in heart so oft should prove;\n   One lose, the other keep, Heaven\u2019s clue;\n      One dwell in wrath, and one in love.\n\n   He only knows\u2014for He can read\n      The mystery of the wicked heart\u2014\n   Why vainly oft our arrows speed\n      When aimed with most unerring art;\n\n   While from some rude and powerless arm\n      A random shaft in season sent\n   Shall light upon some lurking harm,\n      And work some wonder little meant.\n\n   Doubt we, how souls so wanton change,\n      Leaving their own experienced rest?\n   Need not around the world to range;\n      One narrow cell may teach us best.\n\n   Look in, and see Christ\u2019s chosen saint\n      In triumph wear his Christ-like chain;\n   No fear lest he should swerve or faint;\n      \u201cHis life is Christ, his death is gain.\u201d\n\n   Two converts, watching by his side,\n      Alike his love and greetings share;\n   Luke the beloved, the sick soul\u2019s guide,\n      And Demas, named in faltering prayer.\n\n   Pass a few years\u2014look in once more\u2014\n      The saint is in his bonds again;\n   Save that his hopes more boldly soar,\n      He and his lot unchanged remain.\n\n   But only Luke is with him now:\n      Alas! that e\u2019en the martyr\u2019s cell,\n   Heaven\u2019s very gate, should scope allow\n      For the false world\u2019s seducing spell.\n\n   \u2019Tis sad\u2014but yet \u2019tis well, be sure,\n      We on the sight should muse awhile,\n   Nor deem our shelter all secure\n      E\u2019en in the Church\u2019s holiest aisle.\n\n   Vainly before the shrine he bends,\n      Who knows not the true pilgrim\u2019s part:\n   The martyr\u2019s cell no safety lends\n      To him who wants the martyr\u2019s heart.\n\n   But if there be, who follows Paul\n      As Paul his Lord, in life and death,\n   Where\u2019er an aching heart may call,\n      Ready to speed and take no breath;\n\n   Whose joy is, to the wandering sheep\n      To tell of the great Shepherd\u2019s love;\n   To learn of mourners while they weep\n      The music that makes mirth above;\n\n   Who makes the Saviour all his theme,\n      The Gospel all his pride and praise\u2014\n   Approach: for thou canst feel the gleam\n      That round the martyr\u2019s death-bed plays:\n\n   Thou hast an ear for angels\u2019 songs,\n      A breath the gospel trump to fill,\n   And taught by thee the Church prolongs\n      Her hymns of high thanksgiving still.\n\n   Ah! dearest mother, since too oft\n      The world yet wins some Demas frail\n   E\u2019en from thine arms, so kind and soft,\n      May thy tried comforts never fail!\n\n   When faithless ones forsake thy wing,\n      Be it vouchsafed thee still to see\n   Thy true, fond nurslings closer cling,\n      Cling closer to their Lord and thee.\n\n\n\nSt. Simon and St. Jude.\n\n\n    That ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once\n    delivered unto the saints.  _St. Jude_ 3.\n\n   SEEST thou, how tearful and alone,\n      And drooping like a wounded dove,\n   The Cross in sight, but Jesus gone,\n      The widowed Church is fain to rove?\n\n   Who is at hand that loves the Lord?\n      Make haste, and take her home, and bring\n   Thine household choir, in true accord\n      Their soothing hymns for her to sing.\n\n   Soft on her fluttering heart shall breathe\n      The fragrance of that genial isle,\n   There she may weave her funeral wreath,\n      And to her own sad music smile.\n\n   The Spirit of the dying Son\n      Is there, and fills the holy place\n   With records sweet of duties done,\n      Of pardoned foes, and cherished grace.\n\n   And as of old by two and two\n      His herald saints the Saviour sent\n   To soften hearts like morning dew,\n      Where he to shine in mercy meant;\n\n   So evermore He deems His name\n      Best honoured and his way prepared,\n   When watching by his altar-flame\n      He sees His servants duly paired.\n\n   He loves when age and youth are met,\n      Fervent old age and youth serene,\n   Their high and low in concord set\n      For sacred song, Joy\u2019s golden mean.\n\n   He loves when some clear soaring mind\n      Is drawn by mutual piety\n   To simple souls and unrefined,\n      Who in life\u2019s shadiest covert lie.\n\n   Or if perchance a saddened heart\n      That once was gay and felt the spring,\n   Cons slowly o\u2019er its altered part,\n      In sorrow and remorse to sing,\n\n   Thy gracious care will send that way\n      Some spirit full of glee, yet taught\n   To bear the sight of dull decay,\n      And nurse it with all-pitying thought;\n\n   Cheerful as soaring lark, and mild\n      As evening blackbird\u2019s full-toned lay,\n   When the relenting sun has smiled\n      Bright through a whole December day.\n\n   These are the tones to brace and cheer\n      The lonely watcher of the fold,\n   When nights are dark, and foeman near,\n      When visions fade and hearts grow cold.\n\n   How timely then a comrade\u2019s song\n      Comes floating on the mountain air,\n   And bids thee yet be bold and strong\u2014\n      Fancy may die, but Faith is there.\n\n\n\nAll Saints\u2019 Day.\n\n\n    Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have\n    sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.  _Revelation_ vii.\n    3.\n\n      WHY blow\u2019st thou not, thou wintry wind,\n         Now every leaf is brown and sere,\n      And idly droops, to thee resigned,\n         The fading chaplet of the year?\n      Yet wears the pure a\u00ebrial sky\n      Her summer veil, half drawn on high,\n      Of silvery haze, and dark and still\n   The shadows sleep on every slanting hill.\n\n      How quiet shows the woodland scene!\n         Each flower and tree, its duty done,\n      Reposing in decay serene,\n         Like weary men when age is won,\n      Such calm old age as conscience pure\n      And self-commanding hearts ensure,\n      Waiting their summons to the sky,\n   Content to live, but not afraid to die.\n\n      Sure if our eyes were purged to trace\n         God\u2019s unseen armies hovering round,\n      We should behold by angels\u2019 grace\n         The four strong winds of Heaven fast bound,\n      Their downward sweep a moment stayed\n      On ocean cove and forest glade,\n      Till the last flower of autumn shed\n   Her funeral odours on her dying bed.\n\n      So in Thine awful armoury, Lord,\n         The lightnings of the judgment-day\n      Pause yet awhile, in mercy stored,\n         Till willing hearts wear quite away\n      Their earthly stains; and spotless shine\n      On every brow in light divine\n      The Cross by angel hands impressed,\n   The seal of glory won and pledge of promised\n\n      Little they dream, those haughty souls\n         Whom empires own with bended knee,\n      What lowly fate their own controls,\n         Together linked by Heaven\u2019s decree;\u2014\n      As bloodhounds hush their baying wild\n      To wanton with some fearless child,\n      So Famine waits, and War with greedy eyes,\n   Till some repenting heart be ready for the skies.\n\n      Think ye the spires that glow so bright\n         In front of yonder setting sun,\n      Stand by their own unshaken might?\n         No\u2014where th\u2019 upholding grace is won,\n      We dare not ask, nor Heaven would tell,\n      But sure from many a hidden dell,\n      From many a rural nook unthought of there,\n   Rises for that proud world the saints\u2019 prevailing prayer.\n\n      On, Champions blest, in Jesus\u2019 name,\n         Short be your strife, your triumph full,\n      Till every heart have caught your flame,\n         And, lightened of the world\u2019s misrule,\n      Ye soar those elder saints to meet\n      Gathered long since at Jesus\u2019 feet,\n      No world of passions to destroy,\n   Your prayers and struggles o\u2019er, your task all praise and joy.\n\n\n\nHoly Communion.\n\n\n   O GOD of Mercy, God of Might,\n   How should pale sinners bear the sight,\n   If, as Thy power in surely here,\n   Thine open glory should appear?\n\n   For now Thy people are allowed\n   To scale the mount and pierce the cloud,\n   And Faith may feed her eager view\n   With wonders Sinai never knew.\n\n   Fresh from th\u2019 atoning sacrifice\n   The world\u2019s Creator bleeding lies.\n   That man, His foe, by whom He bled,\n   May take Him for his daily bread.\n\n   O agony of wavering thought\n   When sinners first so near are brought!\n   \u201cIt is my Maker\u2014dare I stay?\n   My Saviour\u2014dare I turn away?\u201d\n\n   Thus while the storm is high within\n   \u2019Twixt love of Christ and fear of sin,\n   Who can express the soothing charm,\n   To feel Thy kind upholding arm,\n\n   My mother Church? and hear thee tell\n   Of a world lost, yet loved so well,\n   That He, by whom the angels live,\n   His only Son for her would give?\n\n   And doubt we yet?  Thou call\u2019st again;\n   A lower still, a sweeter strain;\n   A voice from Mercy\u2019s inmost shrine,\n   This very breath of Love divine.\n\n   Whispering it says to each apart,\n   \u201cCome unto Me, thou trembling heart;\u201d\n   And we must hope, so sweet the tone,\n   The precious words are all our own.\n\n   Hear them, kind Saviour\u2014hear Thy Spouse\n   Low at Thy feet renew her vows;\n   Thine own dear promise she would plead\n   For us her true though fallen seed.\n\n   She pleads by all Thy mercies, told\n   Thy chosen witnesses of old,\n   Love\u2019s heralds sent to man forgiven,\n   One from the Cross, and one from Heaven.\n\n   This, of true penitents the chief,\n   To the lost spirit brings relief,\n   Lifting on high th\u2019 ador\u00e8d Name:\u2014\n   \u201cSinners to save, Christ, Jesus came.\u201d\n\n   That, dearest of Thy bosom Friends,\n   Into the wavering heart descends:\u2014\n   \u201cWhat? fallen again? yet cheerful rise.\n   Thine Intercessor never dies.\u201d\n\n   The eye of Faith, that waxes bright\n   Each moment by thine altar\u2019s light,\n   Sees them e\u2019en now: they still abide\n   In mystery kneeling at our side:\n\n   And with them every spirit blest,\n   From realms of triumph or of rest,\n   From Him who saw creation\u2019s morn,\n   Of all Thine angels eldest born,\n\n   To the poor babe, who died to-day,\n   Take part in our thanksgiving lay,\n   Watching the tearful joy and calm,\n   While sinners taste Thine heavenly balm.\n\n   Sweet awful hour! the only sound\n   One gentle footstep gliding round,\n   Offering by turns on Jesus\u2019 part\n   The Cross to every hand and heart.\n\n   Refresh us, Lord, to hold it fast;\n   And when Thy veil is drawn at last,\n   Let us depart where shadows cease,\n   With words of blessing and of peace.\n\n\n\nHoly Baptism.\n\n\n   WHERE is it mothers learn their love?\u2014\n      In every Church a fountain springs\n         O\u2019er which th\u2019 Eternal Dove\n            Hovers out softest wings.\n\n   What sparkles in that lucid flood\n      Is water, by gross mortals eyed:\n         But seen by Faith, \u2019tis blood\n            Out of a dear Friend\u2019s side.\n\n   A few calm words of faith and prayer,\n      A few bright drops of holy dew,\n         Shall work a wonder there\n            Earth\u2019s charmers never knew.\n\n   O happy arms, where cradled lies,\n      And ready for the Lord\u2019s embrace,\n         That precious sacrifice,\n            The darling of His grace!\n\n   Blest eyes, that see the smiling gleam\n      Upon the slumbering features glow,\n         When the life-giving stream\n            Touches the tender brow!\n\n   Or when the holy cross is signed,\n      And the young soldier duly sworn,\n         With true and fearless mind\n            To serve the Virgin-born.\n\n   But happiest ye, who sealed and blest\n      Back to your arms your treasure take,\n         With Jesus\u2019 mark impressed\n            To nurse for Jesus\u2019 sake:\n\n   To whom\u2014as if in hallowed air\n      Ye knelt before some awful shrine\u2014\n         His innocent gestures wear\n            A meaning half divine:\n\n   By whom Love\u2019s daily touch is seen\n      In strengthening form and freshening hue,\n         In the fixed brow serene,\n            The deep yet eager view.\u2014\n\n   Who taught thy pure and even breath\n      To come and go with such sweet grace?\n         Whence thy reposing Faith,\n            Though in our frail embrace?\n\n   O tender gem, and full of Heaven!\n      Not in the twilight stars on high,\n         Not in moist flowers at even\n            See we our God so nigh.\n\n   Sweet one, make haste and know Him too,\n      Thine own adopting Father love,\n         That like thine earliest dew\n            Thy dying sweets may prove.\n\n\n\nCatechism.\n\n\n   OH! say not, dream not, heavenly notes\n      To childish ears are vain,\n   That the young mind at random floats,\n      And cannot reach the strain.\n\n   Dim or unheard, the words may fall,\n      And yet the heaven-taught mind\n   May learn the sacred air, and all\n      The harmony unwind.\n\n   Was not our Lord a little child,\n      Taught by degrees to pray,\n   By father dear and mother mild\n      Instructed day by day?\n\n   And loved He not of Heaven to talk\n      With children in His sight,\n   To meet them in His daily walk,\n      And to His arms invite?\n\n   What though around His throne of fire\n      The everlasting chant\n   Be wafted from the seraph choir\n      In glory jubilant?\n\n   Yet stoops He, ever pleased to mark\n      Our rude essays of love,\n   Faint as the pipe of wakening lark,\n      Heard by some twilight grove:\n\n   Yet is He near us, to survey\n      These bright and ordered files,\n   Like spring-flowers in their best array,\n      All silence and all smiles.\n\n   Save that each little voice in turn\n      Some glorious truth proclaims,\n   What sages would have died to learn,\n      Now taught by cottage dames.\n\n   And if some tones be false or low,\n      What are all prayers beneath\n   But cries of babes, that cannot know\n      Half the deep thought they breathe?\n\n   In His own words we Christ adore,\n      But angels, as we speak,\n   Higher above our meaning soar\n      Than we o\u2019er children weak:\n\n   And yet His words mean more than they,\n      And yet He owns their praise:\n   Why should we think, He turns away\n      From infants\u2019 simple lays?\n\n\n\nConfirmation.\n\n\n   THE shadow of th\u2019 Almighty\u2019s cloud\n      Calm on this tents of Israel lay,\n   While drooping paused twelve banners proud,\n      Till He arise and lead this way.\n\n   Then to the desert breeze unrolled,\n      Cheerly the waving pennons fly,\n   Lion or eagle\u2014each bright fold\n      A lodestar to a warrior\u2019s eye.\n\n   So should Thy champions, ere this strife\n      By holy hands o\u2019ershadowed kneel,\n   So, fearless for their charm\u00e8d life,\n      Bear, to this end, Thy Spirit\u2019s seal.\n\n   Steady and pure as stars that beam\n      In middle heaven, all mist above,\n   Seen deepest in this frozen stream:\u2014\n      Such is their high courageous love.\n\n   And soft as pure, and warm as bright,\n      They brood upon life\u2019s peaceful hour,\n   As if the Dove that guides their flight\n      Shook from her plumes a downy shower.\n\n   Spirit of might and sweetness too!\n      Now leading on the wars of God,\n   Now to green isles of shade and dew\n      Turning the waste Thy people trod;\n\n   Draw, Holy Ghost, Thy seven-fold veil\n      Between us and the fires of youth;\n   Breathe, Holy Ghost, Thy freshening gale,\n      Our fevered brow in age to soothe.\n\n   And oft as sin and sorrow tire,\n      This hallowed hour do Thou renew,\n   When beckoned up the awful choir\n      By pastoral hands, toward Thee we drew;\n\n   When trembling at this sacred rail\n      We hid our eyes and held our breath,\n   Felt Thee how strong, our hearts how frail,\n      And longed to own Thee to the death.\n\n   For ever on our souls be traced\n      That blessing dear, that dove-like hand,\n   A sheltering rock in Memory\u2019s waste,\n      O\u2019er-shadowing all the weary land.\n\n\n\nMatrimony.\n\n\n   THERE is an awe in mortals\u2019 joy,\n      A deep mysterious fear\n   Half of the heart will still employ,\n      As if we drew too near\n   To Eden\u2019s portal, and those fires\n   That bicker round in wavy spires,\n   Forbidding, to our frail desires,\n      What cost us once so dear.\n\n   We cower before th\u2019 heart-searching eye\n      In rapture as its pain;\n   E\u2019en wedded Love, till Thou be nigh,\n      Dares not believe her gain:\n   Then in the air she fearless springs,\n   The breath of Heaven beneath her wings,\n   And leaves her woodnote wild, and sings\n      A tuned and measured strain.\n\n   Ill fare the lay, though soft as dew\n      And free as air it fall,\n   That, with Thine altar full in view,\n      Thy votaries would enthrall\n   To a foul dream, of heathen night,\n   Lifting her torch in Love\u2019s despite,\n   And scaring with base wild-fire light\n      The sacred nuptial hall.\n\n   Far other strains, far other fires,\n      Our marriage-offering grace;\n   Welcome, all chaste and kind desires,\n      With even matron pace\n   Approaching down this hallowed aisle!\n   Where should ye seek Love\u2019s perfect smile,\n   But where your prayers were learned erewhile,\n      In her own native place?\n\n   Where, but on His benignest brow,\n      Who waits to bless you here?\n   Living, he owned no nuptial vow,\n      No bower to Fancy dear:\n   Love\u2019s very self\u2014for Him no need\n   To nurse, on earth, the heavenly seed:\n   Yet comfort in His eye we read\n      For bridal joy and fear.\n\n   \u2019Tis He who clasps the marriage band,\n      And fits the spousal ring,\n   Then leaves ye kneeling, hand in hand,\n      Out of His stores to bring\n   His Father\u2019s dearest blessing, shed\n   Of old on Isaac\u2019s nuptial bed,\n   Now on the board before ye spread\n      Of our all-bounteous King.\n\n   All blessings of the breast and womb,\n      Of Heaven and earth beneath,\n   Of converse high, and sacred home,\n      Are yours, in life and death.\n   Only kneel on, nor turn away\n   From the pure shrine, where Christ to-day\n   Will store each flower, ye duteous lay,\n      For an eternal wreath.\n\n\n\nVisitation and Communion of the Sick.\n\n\n   O YOUTH and Joy, your airy tread\n   Too lightly springs by Sorrow\u2019s bed,\n   Your keen eye-glances are too bright,\n   Too restless for a sick man\u2019s sight.\n   Farewell; for one short life we part:\n   I rather woo the soothing art,\n   Which only souls in sufferings tried\n   Bear to their suffering brethren\u2019s side.\n\n   Where may we learn that gentle spell?\n   Mother of Martyrs, thou canst tell!\n   Thou, who didst watch thy dying Spouse\n   With pierc\u00e8d hands and bleeding brows,\n   Whose tears from age to age are shed\n   O\u2019er sainted sons untimely dead,\n   If e\u2019er we charm a soul in pain,\n   Thine is the key-note of our strain.\n\n   How sweet with thee to lift the latch,\n   Where Faith has kept her midnight watch,\n   Smiling on woe: with thee to kneel,\n   Where fixed, as if one prayer could heal,\n   She listens, till her pale eye glow\n   With joy, wild health can never know,\n   And each calm feature, ere we read,\n   Speaks, silently, thy glorious Creed.\n\n   Such have I seen: and while they poured\n   Their hearts in every contrite word,\n   How have I rather longed to kneel\n   And ask of them sweet pardon\u2019s seal;\n   How blessed the heavenly music brought\n   By thee to aid my faltering thought!\n   \u201cPeace\u201d ere we kneel, and when we cease\n   To pray, the farewell word is, \u201cPeace.\u201d\n\n   I came again: the place was bright\n   \u201cWith something of celestial light\u201d\u2014\n   A simple Altar by the bed\n   For high Communion meetly spread,\n   Chalice, and plate, and snowy vest.\u2014\n   We ate and drank: then calmly blest,\n   All mourners, one with dying breath,\n   We sate and talked of Jesus\u2019 death.\n\n   Once more I came: the silent room\n   Was veiled in sadly-soothing gloom,\n   And ready for her last abode\n   The pale form like a lily showed,\n   By Virgin fingers duly spread,\n   And prized for love of summer fled.\n   The light from those soft-smiling eyes\n   Had fleeted to its parent skies.\n\n   O soothe us, haunt us, night and day,\n   Ye gentle Spirits far away,\n   With whom we shared the cup of grace,\n   Then parted; ye to Christ\u2019s embrace,\n   We to this lonesome world again,\n   Yet mindful of th\u2019 unearthly strain\n   Practised with you at Eden\u2019s door,\n   To be sung on, where Angels soar,\n   With blended voices evermore.\n\n\n\nBurial of the Dead.\n\n\n    And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto\n    her, Weep not.  And He came and touched the bier; and they that bare\n    him stood still.   And He said, Young man, I say unto thee,\n    Arise.\u2014_St. Luke_ vii. 13, 14.\n\n   WHO says, the wan autumnal soon\n      Beams with too faint a smile\n   To light up nature\u2019s face again,\n   And, though the year be on this wane,\n      With thoughts of spring the heart beguile?\n\n   Waft him, thou soft September breeze,\n      And gently lay him down\n   Within some circling woodland wall,\n   Where bright leaves, reddening ere they fall,\n      Wave gaily o\u2019er the waters brown.\n\n   And let some graceful arch be there\n      With wreath\u00e8d mullions proud,\n   With burnished ivy for its screen,\n   And moss, that glows as fresh and green\n      As thought beneath an April cloud.\u2014\n\n   Who says the widow\u2019s heart must break,\n      The childless mother sink?\u2014\n   A kinder truer voice I hear,\n   Which e\u2019en beside that mournful bier\n      Whence parents\u2019 eyes would hopeless shrink,\n\n   Bids weep no more\u2014O heart bereft,\n      How strange, to thee, that sound!\n   A widow o\u2019er her only son,\n   Feeling more bitterly alone\n      For friends that press officious round.\n\n   Yet is the voice of comfort heard,\n      For Christ hath touched the bier\u2014\n   The bearers wait with wondering eye,\n   The swelling bosom dares not sigh,\n      But all is still, \u2019twixt hope and fear.\n\n   E\u2019en such an awful soothing calm\n      We sometimes see alight\n   On Christian mourners, while they wait\n   In silence, by some churchyard gate,\n      Their summons to this holy rite.\n\n   And such the tones of love, which break\n      The stillness of that hour,\n   Quelling th\u2019 embittered spirit\u2019s strife\u2014\n   \u201cThe Resurrection and the Life\n      Am I: believe, and die no more.\u201d\n\n   Unchanged that voice\u2014and though not yet\n      The dead sit up and speak,\n   Answering its call; we gladlier rest\n   Our darlings on earth\u2019s quiet breast,\n      And our hearts feel they must not break.\n\n   Far better they should sleep awhile\n      Within the Church\u2019s shade,\n   Nor wake, until new heaven, new earth,\n   Meet for their new immortal birth\n      For their abiding-place be made,\n\n   Than wander back to life, and lean\n      On our frail love once more.\n   \u2019Tis sweet, as year by year we lose\n   Friends out of sight, in faith to muse\n      How grows in Paradise our store.\n\n   Then pass, ye mourners, cheerly on,\n      Through prayer unto the tomb,\n   Still, as ye watch life\u2019s falling leaf,\n   Gathering from every loss and grief\n      Hope of new spring and endless home.\n\n   Then cheerly to your work again\n      With hearts new-braced and set\n   To run, untired, love\u2019s bless\u00e8d race.\n   As meet for those, who face to face\n      Over the grave their Lord have met.\n\n\n\nChurching of Women.\n\n\n         IS there, in bowers of endless spring,\n            One known from all the seraph band\n         By softer voice, by smile and wing\n               More exquisitely bland!\n      Here let him speed: to-day this hallowed air\n   Is fragrant with a mother\u2019s first and fondest prayer.\n\n         Only let Heaven her fire impart,\n            No richer incense breathes on earth:\n         \u201cA spouse with all a daughter\u2019s heart,\u201d\n               Fresh from the perilous birth,\n      To the great Father lifts her pale glad eye,\n   Like a reviving flower when storms are hushed on high.\n\n         Oh, what a treasure of sweet thought\n            Is here! what hope and joy and love\n         All in one tender bosom brought,\n               For the all-gracious Dove\n      To brood o\u2019er silently, and form for Heaven\n   Each passionate wish and dream to dear affection given.\n\n         Her fluttering heart, too keenly blest,\n            Would sicken, but she leans on Thee,\n         Sees Thee by faith on Mary\u2019s breast,\n               And breathes serene and free.\n      Slight tremblings only of her veil declare\n   Soft answers duly whispered to each soothing prayer.\n\n         We are too weak, when Thou dost bless,\n            To bear the joy\u2014help, Virgin-born!\n         By Thine own mother\u2019s first caress,\n               That waked Thy natal morn!\n      Help, by the unexpressive smile, that made\n   A Heaven on earth around this couch where Thou wast laid.\n\n\n\nCommination.\n\n\n         The prayers are o\u2019er: why slumberest thou so long,\n            Thou voice of sacred song?\n         Why swell\u2019st thou not, like breeze from mountain cave,\n            High o\u2019er the echoing nave,\n         This white-robed priest, as otherwhile, to guide,\n            Up to the Altar\u2019s northern side?\u2014\n      A mourner\u2019s tale of shame and sad decay\n   Keeps back our glorious sacrifice to-day:\n\n         The widow\u2019d Spouse of Christ: with ashes crown\u2019d,\n            Her Christmas robes unbound,\n         She lingers in the porch for grief and fear,\n            Keeping her penance drear,\u2014\n         Oh, is it nought to you? that idly gay,\n            Or coldly proud, ye turn away?\n      But if her warning tears in vain be spent,\n   Lo, to her altered eye this Law\u2019s stern fires are lent.\n\n         Each awful curse, that on Mount Ebal rang,\n            Peals with a direr clang\n         Out of that silver trump, whose tones of old\n            Forgiveness only told.\n         And who can blame the mother\u2019s fond affright,\n            Who sporting on some giddy height\n      Her infant sees, and springs with hurried hand\n   To snatch the rover from the dangerous strand?\n\n         But surer than all words the silent spell\n            (So Grecian legends tell)\n         When to her bird, too early \u2019scaped the nest,\n            She bares her tender breast,\n         Smiling he turns and spreads his little wing,\n            There to glide home, there safely cling.\n      So yearns our mother o\u2019er each truant son,\n   So softly falls the lay in fear and wrath begun.\n\n         Wayward and spoiled she knows ye: the keen blast,\n            That braced her youth, is past:\n         The rod of discipline, the robe of shame\u2014\n            She bears them in your name:\n         Only return and love.  But ye perchance\n            Are deeper plunged in sorrow\u2019s trance:\n      Your God forgives, but ye no comfort take\n   Till ye have scourged the sins that in your conscience ache.\n\n         Oh, heavy laden soul! kneel down and hear\n            Thy penance in calm fear:\n         With thine own lips to sentence all thy sin;\n            Then, by the judge within\n         Absolved, in thankful sacrifice to part\n            For ever with thy sullen heart,\n      Nor on remorseful thoughts to brood, and stain\n   This glory of the Cross, forgiven and cheereth in vain.\n\n\n\nForms of Prayer to be used at Sea.\n\n\n   When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.  _Isaiah_\n   xliii. 2.\n\n   THE shower of moonlight falls as still and clear\n         Upon this desert main\n   As where sweet flowers some pastoral garden cheer\n         With fragrance after rain:\n   The wild winds rustle in piping shrouds,\n         As in the quivering trees:\n   Like summer fields, beneath the shadowy clouds\n      The yielding waters darken in the breeze.\n\n   Thou too art here with thy soft inland tones,\n         Mother of our new birth;\n   The lonely ocean learns thy orisons,\n         And loves thy sacred mirth:\n   When storms are high, or when the fires of war\n         Come lightening round our course,\n   Thou breath\u2019st a note like music from afar,\n      Tempering rude hearts with calm angelic force.\n\n   Far, far away, the homesick seaman\u2019s hoard,\n         Thy fragrant tokens live,\n   Like flower-leaves in a previous volume stored,\n         To solace and relieve\n   Some heart too weary of the restless world;\n         Or like thy Sabbath Cross,\n   That o\u2019er this brightening billow streams unfurled,\n      Whatever gale the labouring vessel toss.\n\n   Oh, kindly soothing in high Victory\u2019s hour,\n         Or when a comrade dies,\n   In whose sweet presence Sorrow dares not lower,\n         Nor Expectation rise\n   Too high for earth; what mother\u2019s heart could spare\n         To the cold cheerless deep\n   Her flower and hope? but Thou art with him there,\n      Pledge of the untired arm and eye that cannot sleep:\n\n   The eye that watches o\u2019er wild Ocean\u2019s dead,\n         Each in his coral cave,\n   Fondly as if the green turf wrapt his head\n         Fast by his father\u2019s grave,\u2014\n   One moment, and the seeds of life shall spring\n         Out of the waste abyss,\n   And happy warriors triumph with their King\n      In worlds without a sea, unchanging orbs of bliss.\n\n\n\nGunpowder Treason.\n\n\n    A thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness\n    also at Rome.   _Acts_ xxiii. 11.\n\n   BENEATH the burning eastern sky\n      The Cross was raised at morn:\n   The widowed Church to weep stood by,\n      The world, to hate and scorn.\n\n   Now, journeying westward, evermore\n      We know the lonely Spouse\n   By the dear mark her Saviour bore\n      Traced on her patient brows.\n\n   At Rome she wears it, as of old\n      Upon th\u2019 accurs\u00e8d hill:\n   By monarchs clad in gems and gold,\n      She goes a mourner still.\n\n   She mourns that tender hearts should bend\n      Before a meaner shrine,\n   And upon Saint or Angel spend\n      The love that should be thine.\n\n   By day and night her sorrows fall\n      Where miscreant hands and rude\n   Have stained her pure ethereal pall\n      With many a martyr\u2019s blood.\n\n   And yearns not her parental heart,\n      To hear _their_ secret sighs,\n   Upon whose doubting way apart\n      Bewildering shadows rise?\n\n   Who to her side in peace would cling,\n      But fear to wake, and find\n   What they had deemed her genial wing\n      Was Error\u2019s soothing blind.\n\n   She treasures up each throbbing prayer:\n      Come, trembler, come and pour\n   Into her bosom all thy care,\n      For she has balm in store.\n\n   Her gentle teaching sweetly blends\n      With this clear light of Truth\n   The a\u00ebrial gleam that Fancy lends\n      To solemn thoughts in youth.\u2014\n\n   If thou hast loved, in hours of gloom,\n      To dream the dead are near,\n   And people all the lonely room\n      With guardian spirits dear,\n\n   Dream on the soothing dream at will:\n      The lurid mist is o\u2019er,\n   That showed the righteous suffering still\n      Upon th\u2019 eternal shore.\n\n   If with thy heart the strains accord,\n      That on His altar-throne\n   Highest exalt thy glorious Lord,\n      Yet leave Him most thine own;\n\n   Oh, come to our Communion Feast:\n      There present, in the heart\n   As in the hands, th\u2019 eternal Priest\n      Will His true self impart.\u2014\n\n   Thus, should thy soul misgiving turn\n      Back to the enchanted air,\n   Solace and warning thou mayst learn\n      From all that tempts thee there.\n\n   And, oh! by all the pangs and fears\n      Fraternal spirits know,\n   When for an elder\u2019s shame the tears\n      Of wakeful anguish flow,\n\n   Speak gently of our sister\u2019s fall:\n      Who knows but gentle love\n   May win her at our patient call\n      The surer way to prove?\n\n\n\nKing Charles the Martyr.\n\n\n    This is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief,\n    suffering wrongfully.  1 _St. Peter_ ii. 19.\n\n   PRAISE to our pardoning God! though silent now\n      The thunders of the deep prophetic sky,\n   Though in our sight no powers of darkness bow\n      Before th\u2019 Apostles\u2019 glorious company;\n\n   The Martyrs\u2019 noble army still is ours,\n      Far in the North our fallen days have seen\n   How in her woe this tenderest spirit towers\n      For Jesus\u2019 sake in agony serene.\n\n   Praise to our God! not cottage hearths alone,\n      And shades impervious to the proud world\u2019s glare,\n   Such witness yield; a monarch from his throne\n      Springs to his Cross and finds his glory there.\n\n   Yes: whereso\u2019er one trace of thee is found,\n      As in the Sacred Land, the shadows fall:\n   With beating hearts we roam the haunted ground,\n      Lone battle-field, or crumbling prison hall.\n\n   And there are aching solitary breasts,\n      Whose widowed walk with thought of thee is cheered\n   Our own, our royal Saint: thy memory rests\n      On many a prayer, the more for thee endeared.\n\n   True son of our dear Mother, early taught\n      With her to worship and for her to die,\n   Nursed in her aisles to more than kingly thought,\n      Oft in her solemn hours we dream thee nigh.\n\n   For thou didst love to trace her daily lore,\n      And where we look for comfort or for calm,\n   Over the self-same lines to bend, and pour\n      Thy heart with hers in some victorious psalm.\n\n   And well did she thy loyal love repay;\n      When all forsook, her Angels still were nigh,\n   Chained and bereft, and on thy funeral way,\n      Straight to the Cross she turned thy dying eye\n\n   And yearly now, before the Martyrs\u2019 King,\n      For thee she offers her maternal tears,\n   Calls us, like thee, to His dear feet to cling,\n      And bury in His wounds our earthly fears.\n\n   The Angels hear, and there is mirth in Heaven,\n      Fit prelude of the joy, when spirits won\n   Like those to patient Faith, shall rise forgiven,\n      And at their Saviour\u2019s knees thy bright example own.\n\n\n\nThe Restoration of the Royal Family.\n\n\n    And Barzillai said unto the King, How long have I to live, that I\n    should go up with the King unto Jerusalem?  2 _Samuel_ xix. 34.\n\n   AS when the Paschal week is o\u2019er,\n   Sleeps in the silent aisles no more\n      The breath of sacred song,\n   But by the rising Saviour\u2019s light\n   Awakened soars in airy flight,\n      Or deepening rolls along;\n\n   The while round altar, niche, and shrine,\n   The funeral evergreens entwine,\n      And a dark brilliance cast,\n   The brighter for their hues of gloom,\n   Tokens of Him, who through the tomb\n      Into high glory passed:\n\n   Such were the lights and such the strains.\n   When proudly streamed o\u2019er ocean plains\n      Our own returning Cross;\n   For with that triumph seemed to float\n   Far on the breeze one dirge-like note\n      Of orphanhood and loss.\n\n   Father and King, oh where art thou?\n   A greener wreath adorns thy brow,\n      And clearer rays surround;\n   O, for one hour of prayer like thine,\n   To plead before th\u2019 all-ruling shrine\n      For Britain lost and found!\n\n   And he, whose mild persuasive voice\n   Taught us in trials to rejoice,\n      Most like a faithful dove,\n   That by some ruined homestead builds,\n   And pours to the forsaken fields\n      His wonted lay of love:\n\n   Why comes he not to bear his part,\n   To lift and guide th\u2019 exulting heart?\u2014\n      A hand that cannot spars\n   Lies heavy on his gentle breast:\n   We wish him health; he sighs for rest,\n      And Heaven accepts the prayer.\n\n   Yes, go in peace, dear placid spright,\n   Ill spared; but would we store aright\n      Thy serious sweet farewell,\n   We need not grudge thee to the skies,\n   Sure after thee in time to rise,\n      With thee for ever dwell.\n\n   Till then, whene\u2019er with duteous hand,\n   Year after year, my native Land\n      Her royal offering brings,\n   Upon the Altar lays the Crown,\n   And spreads her robes of old renown\n      Before the King of kings.\n\n   Be some kind spirit, likest thine,\n   Ever at hand, with airs divine\n      The wandering heart to seize;\n   Whispering, \u201cHow long hast thou to live,\n   That thou should\u2019st Hope or Fancy gave\n      To flowers or crowns like these?\u201d\n\n\n\nThe Accession.\n\n\n    As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee; I will not fail thee,\n    nor forsake thee.  _Joshua_ i. 5.\n\n   THE voice that from the glory came\n      To tell how Moses died unseen,\n   And waken Joshua\u2019s spear of flame\n      To victory on the mountains green,\n   Its trumpet tones are sounding still,\n      When Kings or Parents pass away,\n   They greet us with a cheering thrill\n      Of power and comfort in decay.\n\n   Behind thus soft bright summer cloud\n      That makes such haste to melt and die,\n   Our wistful gaze is oft allowed\n      A glimpse of the unchanging sky:\n   Let storm and darkness do their worst;\n      For the lost dream the heart may ache,\n   The heart may ache, but may not burst;\n      Heaven will not leave thee nor forsake.\n\n   One rock amid the weltering floods,\n      One torch in a tempestuous night,\n   One changeless pine in fading woods:\u2014\n      Such is the thought of Love and Might,\n   True Might and ever-present Love,\n      When death is busy near the throne,\n   Auth Sorrow her keen sting would prove\n      On Monarchs orphaned and alone.\n\n   In that lorn hour and desolate,\n      Who could endure a crown? but He,\n   Who singly bore the world\u2019s sad weight,\n      Is near, to whisper, \u201cLean on Me:\n   Thy days of toil, thy nights of care,\n      Sad lonely dreams in crowded hall,\n   Darkness within, while pageants glare\n      Around\u2014the Cross supports them all.\u201d\n\n   Oh, Promise of undying Love!\n      While Monarchs seek thee for repose,\n   Far in the nameless mountain cove\n      Each pastoral heart thy bounty knows.\n   Ye, who in place of shepherds true\n      Come trembling to their awful trust,\n   Lo here the fountain to imbue\n      With strength and hope your feeble dust.\n\n   Not upon Kings or Priests alone\n      The power of that dear word is spent;\n   It chants to all in softest tone\n      The lowly lesson of Content:\n   Heaven\u2019s light is poured on high and low;\n      To high and low Heaven\u2019s Angel spake;\n   \u201cResign thee to thy weal or woe,\n      I ne\u2019er will leave thee nor forsake.\u201d\n\n\n\nOrdination.\n\n\n    After this, the congregation shall be desired, secretly in their\n    prayers, to make their humble supplications to God for all these\n    things: for the which prayers there shall be silence kept for a\n    space.\n\n    After which shall be sung or said by the Bishop (the persons to be\n    ordained Priests all kneeling), \u201cVeni, Creator Spiritus.\u201d  _Rubric in\n    the Office for Ordering of Priests_.\n\n   \u2019TWAS silence in Thy temple, Lord,\n      When slowly through the hallowed air\n   The spreading cloud of incense soared,\n      Charged with the breath of Israel\u2019s prayer.\n\n   \u2019Twas silence round Thy throne on high,\n      When the last wondrous seal unclosed,\n   And in this portals of the sky\n      Thine armies awfully reposed.\n\n   And this deep pause, that o\u2019er us now\n      Is hovering\u2014comes it not of Thee?\n   Is it not like a mother\u2019s vow\n      When, with her darling on her knee,\n\n   She weighs and numbers o\u2019er and o\u2019er\n      Love\u2019s treasure hid in her fond breast,\n   To cull from that exhaustless store\n      The dearest blessing and the best?\n\n   And where shall mother\u2019s bosom find,\n      With all its deep love-learn\u00e8d skill,\n   A prayer so sweetly to her mind,\n      As, in this sacred hour and still,\n\n   Is wafted from the white-robed choir,\n      Ere yet the pure high-breath\u00e8d lay,\n   \u201cCome, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,\u201d\n      Rise floating on its dove-like way.\n\n   And when it comes, so deep and clear\n      The strain, so soft the melting fall,\n   It seems not to th\u2019 entranc\u00e8d ear\n      Less than Thine own heart-cheering call.\n\n   Spirit of Christ\u2014Thine earnest given\n      That these our prayers are heard, and they,\n   Who grasp, this hour, the sword of Heaven,\n      Shall feel Thee on their weary way.\n\n   Oft as at morn or soothing eve\n      Over the Holy Fount they lean,\n   Their fading garland freshly weave,\n      Or fan them with Thine airs serene.\n\n   Spirit of Light and Truth! to Thee\n      We trust them in that musing hour,\n   Till they, with open heart and free.\n      Teach all Thy word in all its power.\n\n   When foemen watch their tents by night,\n      And mists hang wide o\u2019er moor and fell,\n   Spirit of Counsel and of Might,\n      Their pastoral warfare guide Thou well.\n\n   And, oh! when worn and tired they sigh\n      With that more fearful war within,\n   When Passion\u2019s storms are loud and high,\n      And brooding o\u2019er remembered sin\n\n   The heart dies down\u2014oh, mightiest then,\n      Come ever true, come ever near,\n   And wake their slumbering love again,\n      Spirit of God\u2019s most holy Fear!","title":"The Christian Year","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":47153}