U

Then, as each fond unconscious child On th everlasting Parent sweetly smild,

(Like infants sporting on the shore, That tremble not at Ocean's boundless roar)

Were they not present to thy thought,
All souls, that in their cradles thou hast bought ?

But chiefly these, who died for Thee,
That Thou might'st live for them a sadder death to see.

And next to these, thy gracious word Was as a pledge of benediction, stor'd

For Christian mothers, while they moan
Their treasur'd hopes, just born, baptiz’d, and gone.

Oh joy for Rachel's broken heart !
She and her babes shall meet no more to part;

So dear to Christ her pious haste
To trust them in his arms, for ever safe embrac’d.

She dares not grudge to leave them there, Where to behold them was her heart's first prayer,

She dares not grieve—but she must weep,
As her pale placid martyr sinks to sleep,

Teaching so well and silently
How, at the shepherd's call, the lamb should die :

D

How happier far than life the end
Of souls that infant-like beneath their burthen bend.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.

So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down. Isaiah xxxviii. 8. Compare Josh. x. 13.

'TIS true, of old th' unchanging sun
His daily course refus’d to run,

The pale moon hurrying to the west
Paus'd at a mortal's call, to aid

Th’avenging storm of war, that laid
Seven guilty realms at once on earth's defiled breast.

But can it be, one suppliant tear
Should stay the ever-moving sphere ?

A sick man's lowly breathed sigh,
When from the world he turns away',

• And Hezekiah turned his face towards the wall, and prayed unto the Lord.

And hides his weary eyes to pray, Should change your mystic dance, ye wanderers of

the sky ?

We too, O Lord, would fain command,
As then, thy wonder-working hand,

And backward force the waves of Time,
That now so swift and silent bear
Our restless bark from

year

to

year ; Help us to pause and mourn to Thee our tale of crime.

Bright hopes, that erst the bosom warmd,
And vows, too pure to be perform’d,

And prayers blown wide by gales of care ;-
These, and such faint half waking dreams,

Like stormy lights on mountain streams, Wavering and broken all, athwart the conscience glare.

How shall we 'scape th' o'erwhelming Past ?
Can spirits broken, joys o'ercast,
And
eyes
that never more may

smile :
Can these th’avenging bolt delay,

Or win us back one little day
The bitterness of death to soften and beguile?

Father and Lover of our souls !
Though darkly round thine anger rolls,

Thy sunshine smiles beneath the gloom,
Thou seek'st to warn us, not confound,

Thy showers would pierce the harden'd ground, And win it to give out its brightness and perfume.

Thou smil'st on us in wrath, and we,
Even in remorse, would smile on Thee;

The tears that bathe our offer'd hearts,
We would not have them stain's and dim,

But dropp'd from wings of seraphim,
All glowing with the light accepted Love imparts.

Time's waters will not ebb, nor stay,
Power cannot change them, but Love may;

What cannot be, Love counts it done.
Deep in the heart, her searching view

Can read where Faith is fix'd and true,
Through shades of setting life can see Heaven's work

begun.

O Thou, who keep'st the Key of Love,
Open thy fount, eternal Dove,

And overflow this heart of mine,
Enlarging as it fills with Thee,

Till in one blaze of charity
Care and remorse are lost, like motes in light divine;

Till, as each moment wafts us higher,
By every gush of pure desire,

And high-breath'd hope of joys above,
By every sacred sigh we heave,

Whole years of folly we outlive,
In His unerring sight, who measures Life by Love.

THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST.

In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. Colossians i. 11.

THE

year begins with Thee, And Thou beginn'st with woe, To let the world of sinners see

That blood for sin must flow.