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If on the sinner's outward frame"

God hath impress'd his mark of blame,

And even our bodies shrink at touch of light,

Yet mercy hath not left us bare:

The very weeds we

weeds we daily wear°

Are to Faith's eye a pledge of God's forgiving might.

And oh! if yet one arrow more",

The sharpest of th' Almighty's store, Tremble

upon the string a sinner's deathArt Thou not by to soothe and save,

To lay us gently in the grave,

To close the weary eye and hush the parting breath?

Therefore in sight of man bereft

The happy garden still was left,

The fiery sword that guarded shew'd it too,
Turning all ways, the world to teach,

That though as yet beyond our reach,

Still in its place the tree of life and glory grew.

n I was afraid because I was naked.

• The Lord God made coats of skins, and he clothed them. P Thou shalt surely die.

QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY.

I do set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. Gen. ix. 13.

SWEET Dove! the softest, steadiest plume

In all the sunbright sky,

Brightening in ever-changeful bloom

As breezes change on high ;

;

Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth,

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Long sought, and lately won,”

Bless'd increase of reviving Earth,

When first it felt the Sun ;

Sweet Rainbow! pride of summer days,
High set at Heaven's command,

Though into drear and dusky haze

Thou melt on either hand

Dear tokens of a pardoning God,

We hail ye, one and all,

As when our fathers walk'd abroad,

Freed from their twelvemonths' thrall.

How joyful from th' imprisoning ark
On the green earth they spring!

Not blither, after showers, the Lark
Mounts up with glistening wing.

So home-bound sailors spring to shore,
Two oceans safely past;

So happy souls, when life is o'er,
Plunge in th' empyreal vast.

What wins their first and fondest gaze
In all the blissful field,

And keeps it through a thousand days?
Love face to face reveal'd:

Love imag'd in that cordial look

Our Lord in Eden bends

On souls that sin and earth forsook

In time to die His friends.

And what most welcome and serene

Dawns on the Patriarch's eye,

In all th' emerging hills so green,
In all the brightening sky?

What but the gentle rainbow's gleam,
Soothing the wearied sight,

That cannot bear the solar beam,

With soft undazzling light?

Lord, if our fathers turn'd to thee

With such adoring gaze,

Wondering frail man thy light should see Without thy scorching blaze.

Where is our love, and where our hearts,

We who have seen thy Son, Have tried thy Spirit's winning arts, And yet we are not won?

The Son of God in radiance beam'd

Too bright for us to scan,

But we may

face the rays that stream'd

From the mild Son of Man.

G

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There, parted into rainbow hues,

In sweet harmonious strife,

We see celestial love diffuse

Its light o'er Jesus' life.

God, by His bow, vouchsafes to write
This truth in Heaven above;

As every lovely hue is Light,
So every grace is Love.

ASH-WEDNESDAY.

When thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret. St. Matthew vi. 17.

"YES-deep within and deeper yet
"The rankling shaft of conscience hide,
"Quick let the swelling eye forget

"The tears that in the heart abide.
"Calm be the voice, the aspect bold,
"No shuddering pass o'er lip or brow,
"For why should Innocence be told

"The pangs that guilty spirits bow?

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