207. ART. Votaries of

WHAT is thy worship but a vain pretence,
Spirit of beauty, and a servile trade,

A poor and an unworthy traffic made
With the most sacred gifts of soul and sense;
If they who tend thine altars, gathering thence
No strength, no purity, may still remain
Selfish and dark, and from life's sordid stain
Find in their ministrations no defence?
-Thus many times I ask, when aught of mean
Or sensual has been brought unto mine ear,
Of them whose calling high is to insphere
Eternal beauty in forms of human art—
Vex'd that my soul should ever moved have been
By that which has such feigning at the heart.

Ten thousand times ten thousand, tier on tier,
Marshall'd by Gabriel, fill'd the firmament.
Every eye was bent

Upon the Saviour, as He stood amongst
The apostolic group, and lifted up

His hands and bless'd them, and in blessing rose,

No wind, no car, no cherubim of fire
Ministrant, in His Father's might self-moved,
Into the glowing sky; until a cloud

Far floating in the zenith, which had drunk

Of the last sunbeams, wrapt His radiant form,
And instantly became like light itself,
Then melted into viewless air.

'Lift up your heads, ye gates!
Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors!
Up, and the King of glory shall come in.'
Immediate, like an echo from those ranks
Guarding the heavenly citadel, the voice
Of myriads perfectly attuned as one,

Came back the peal of joyful challenge, 'Who,
Who is the King of glory?'-and from ours
The jubilant response, 'The Lord of hosts,
Mighty in battle against the powers of hell,
Jehovah, King of glory! Lift your heads!
Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors!

Up, and the King of glory shall come in.'
'Who is the King of glory?' yet again
Peal'd from those opening gates.

hosts;

'The Lord of

He is the King of glory,' broke once more
In waves of thunder on those jasper walls,
Which never shook till now. And, host with host
Commingling, through the portals on we swept.
E. H. Bickersteth.

210. ASCENSION. Christ's

HAIL the day that sees Him rise, Ravish'd from our wishful eyes! Christ, awhile to mortals given, Re-ascends His native heaven.

There the pompous triumph waits: 'Lift your heads, eternal gates, Wide unfold the radiant scene; Take the King of glory in!'

Circled round with angel powers, Their triumphant Lord and ours, Conqueror over death and sin; Take the King of glory in!

Him though highest heaven receives, Still He loves the earth He leaves; Though returning to His throne, Still He calls mankind His own.

See, He lifts His hands above!
See, He shows the prints of love!
Hark! His gracious lips bestow
Blessings on His Church below!

Still for us His death He pleads;
Prevalent He intercedes ;
Near Himself prepares our place,
Harbinger of human race.

Master (will we ever say),
Taken from our head to-day,
See Thy faithful servants, see,
Ever gazing up to Thee.

Grant, though parted from our sight,
High above yon azure height,
Grant our hearts may thither rise,
Following Thee beyond the skies.

Ever upward let us move,
Wafted on the wings of love;
Looking when our Lord shall come,
Longing, gasping after home.

There we shall with Thee remain,
Partners of Thy endless reign;
There Thy face unclouded see,
Find our heaven of heavens in Thee.
Wesley.

211. ASCENSION. Christ's

Lo, God to heaven ascendeth! Throughout its regions vast, With shouts triumphant blendeth The trumpet's thrilling blast: Sing praise to Christ the Lord, Sing praise with exultation, King of each heathen nation, The God of Hosts adored!

With joy is heaven resounding, Christ's glad return to see; Behold the saints surrounding

The Lord who set them free: Bright myriads thronging come ; The cherub band rejoices, And loud seraphic voices Welcome Messiah home.

No more the way is hidden,
Since Christ our Head arose :
No more to man forbidden

The road to heaven that goes.
Our Lord is gone before,

But here He will not leave us ; In heaven He'll soon receive us : He opens wide the door.

HE is gone-we heard Him say,
'Good that I should go away:
Gone is that dear form and face,
But not gone His present grace;
Though Himself no more we see,
Comfortless we cannot be-
No! His Spirit still is ours,
Quickening, freshening all our powers.
He is gone towards their goal,
World and church must onward roll;
Far behind we leave the past;
Forward are our glances cast :
Still His words before us range
Through the ages, as they change:
Wheresoe'er the truth shall lead,
He will give whate'er we need.

He is gone-but we once more
Shall behold Him as before,

In the heaven of heavens the same
As on earth He went and came.
In the many mansions there,
Place for us He will prepare:
In that world, unseen, unknown,
He and we may yet be one.

He is gone-but, not in vain,
Wait until He comes again :

He is risen, He is not here;
Far above this earthly sphere:
Evermore in heart and mind,

Where our peace in Him we find,
To our own Eternal Friend,

Thitherward let us ascend.-A. P. Stanley.

And stand in freedom loosen'd from this world,

I deem not arduous; but must needs confess
That 'tis a thing impossible to frame
Conceptions equal to the soul's desire;
And the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
Man is of dust ethereal hopes are his,

Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft,
Want due consistence; like a pillar of smoke,
That with majestic energy from earth
Rises; but, having reach'd the thinner air,
Melts and dissolves, and is no longer seen.

THE bird, let loose in eastern skies,
When hastening fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam;

But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.

So grant me, God, from every care
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air,

To hold my course to Thee!
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay

My Soul, as home she springs;-
Thy Sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy Freedom in her wings!-Moore.

217. ASSOCIATION. Adjustment of

WHO, think'st thou, in the courts of Heaven reside?
They, who with malice burn, with envy pine,
Ply the full feast and quaff the midnight wine,
Loose pleasure's daughters, and the sons of pride?
They who from meek affliction turn aside,

Its plaints unheard; and bow at Mammon's shrine,
Moloch's, or Bel's; and, blind to truth divine,
Neglect God's mercy, and His power deride?
If such Heaven's inmates, well thou runn'st thy race,
Man of the world! But ah! let conscience tell,
If holy hearts the holy city grace,

What part hast thou therein; and ponder well, Yea, ponder well betimes that other place, And who its tenants, and with whom they dwell. Mant.

A FRAGRANT piece of earth salutes
Each passenger, and perfume shoots,
Unlike the common earth or sod,
Around through all the air abroad.
A pilgrim near it once did rest,
And took it up, and thus address'd:
'Art thou a lump of musk? or art
A ball of spice, this smell t' impart
To all who chance to travel by
The spot where thou, like earth, dost lie?
Humbly the clod replied: "I must
Confess that I am only dust.
But once a rose within me grew :
Its rootlets shot, its flowerets blew,
And all the rose's sweetness roll'd
Throughout the texture of my mould;
And so it is that I impart
Perfume to thee, whoe'er thou art!'

Oriental, tr. by W. R. Alger.

219. ASSOCIATION. Lesson of
THOSE evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!

Those joyous hours have pass'd away,
And many a heart that then was gay
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.

And so 'twill be when I am gone,-
That tuneful peal will still ring on;
While other bards shall walk these dells
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.

Moore.

220. ASSOCIATION. Local

AND who, that walks where men of ancient days
Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds of praise,
Feels not the spirit of the place control,
Or rouse and agitate his labouring soul?
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lull'd by Alpine rills,

On Zutphen's plain, or on that highland dell Through which rough Garry cleaves his way, can tell

What high resolves rivet him to the spot,
Where breathed the gale that caught Wolfe's hap-

piest sigh,

And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye;
Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,
And glad Dundee in 'faint huzzas' expired.
Wordsworth.

221. ASSOCIATION. Ties of

Two faithful needles, from the informing touch
Of the same parent-stone, together drew
Its mystic virtue, and at first conspired
With fatal impulse quivering to the pole :

Then, though disjoin'd by kingdoms, though the main

Roll'd its broad surge betwixt, and different stars
Beheld their wakeful motions, yet preserved

The former friendship, and remember'd still
The alliance of their birth: whate'er the line
Which one possess'd, nor pause nor quiet knew
The sure associate, ere with trembling speed
He found his path, and fix'd unerring there.
Such is the secret union where we feel

A song, a flower, a name, at once restore
Those long-connected scenes where first they moved
The attention.-Aken side.

224. ASTRONOMY. Devotional

ONE sun by day, by night ten thousand shine,

And light us deep into the Deity. . . .
How boundless in magnificence and might!
O, what a confluence of ethereal fires,

From urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven,
Streams to a point, and centres in my sight!
Nor tarries there. . . . I feel it at my heart,
My heart at once it humbles and exalts-
Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.
Who sees it unexalted? or unawed?

Who sees it, and can stop at what is seen?
Material offspring of Omnipotence !
Inanimate, all animating birth!

Work worthy Him who made it! worthy praise !
All praise! praise more than human! nor denied
Thy praise divine! But though man, drown'd in
sleep,

Withholds his homage, not alone I wake :
Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing (unheard

By mortal ear) the glorious Architect,

In this his universal temple, hung
With lustres, with innumerable lights,
That shed religion on the soul-at once,
The temple, and the preacher ! O, how loud
It calls devotion! genuine growth of night.
Devotion! daughter of astronomy !

An undevout astronomer is mad.

True, all things speak a GOD; but in the small,
Men trace out Him-in great, He seizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and wraps, and fills
With new inquiries, 'mid associates new.— -Young.
Blight of

225. ATHEISM.

THEY eat

Their daily bread and draw the breath of Heaven Without or thought or thanks. Ileaven's roof, to them,

Is but a painted ceiling hung with lamps,
No more, that lights them to their purposes. •
They wander loose about; they nothing see,
Themselves except, and creatures like themselves,
Short-lived, short-sighted, impotent to save.
To their dissolute spirits, soon or late,
Destruction cometh, like an armed man,
Or like a dream of murder in the night,
Withering their mortal faculties, and breaking
The bones of all their pride.-Charles Lamb.

'No God! no God!' the simplest flower

That on the wild is found, Shrinks as it drinks its cup of dew,

And trembles at the sound.

'No God!' astonish'd Echo cries
From out her cavern hoar :
And every wand'ring bird that flies
Reproves the Atheist lore.

The solemn forest lifts his head,
The Almighty to proclaim;
The brooklet, on its crystal urn,

Doth leap to grave His name.

High swells the deep and vengeful sea
Along its billowy track,

And red Vesuvius opes his mouth

To hurl the falsehood back.-Sigourney.

228. ATHEISM. Desolation of

O! LIVES there, heaven! beneath thy dread expanse,

One hopeless, dark idolater of Chance,
Content to feed, with pleasures unrefined,
The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind;
Who, mouldering earthward, 'reft of every trust,
In joyless union wedded to the dust,
Could all his parting energy dismiss,
And call this barren world sufficient bliss ?—
There live, alas! of heaven-directed mien,
Of cultured soul, and sapient eye serene,
Who hail thee, man! the pilgrim of a day,
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay!
Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower,
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower!
A friendless slave, a child without a sire,
Whose mortal life, and momentary fire,
Lights to the grave his chance-created form,
As ocean-wrecks illuminate the storm;
And, when th gun's tremendous flash is o'er,
To night and silence sink for evermore !—

Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim,
Lights of the world, and demi-gods of fame?
Is this your triumph-this your proud applause,
Children of Truth, and champions of her cause?
For this hath Science search'd, on weary wing,
By shore and sea-each mute and living thing?
Oh! star-eyed Science, hast thou wander'd there,
To waft us home the message of despair?—