Christ is our place preparing,

To heaven we, too, shall rise, And, joys angelic sharing,

Be where our treasure lies : There may each heart be found ! Where Jesus Christ has enter'd,

There let our hopes be centred, Our course still heavenward bound !

G. F. Sacer, tr. by Miss Cox.

212. ASCENSION. Christ's

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.

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 alost,
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.

Wordsworth. 214. ASPIRATION. Heavenward 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.

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.

215. ASPIRATION. Sympathy in
Countless chords of heavenly music,

Struck ere earthly time began,
Vibrate in immortal concord

To the answering soul of man.
Countless rays of heavenly glory

Shine through spirit pent in clay,
On the wise men at their labours,

On the children at their play.
Man has gazed on heavenly secrets,

Sunn'd himself in heavenly glow,
Seen the glory, heard the music;
We are wiser than we know.

Charles Mackay. 216. ASPIRATION. Worth of Beauty and Truth, though never found, are worthy to be sought,

The singer, upward-springing,

Is grander than his singing, | And tranquil self-sufficing joy illumes the dark of

thought.- Robert Buchanan.

213. ASPIRATION : and Attainment. Yet cease I not to struggle, and aspire Heavenward ; and chide the part of me that flags, Through sinful choice ; or dread necessity On human nature from above imposed. 'Tis, by comparison, an easy task Earth to despise ; but to converse with heaven, This is not easy :-to relinquish all We have, or hope, of happiness and joy,

Commands all light, all influence, all fate-
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows, that walk by us still.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

226. ATHEISM. Causes of

Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph, Make atheists of mankind.-Dryden.

224. ASTRONOMY. Devotional

227. ATHEISM. Contradiction of
‘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.

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 Glls
With new inquiries, 'mid associates new.--Young.

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 !

225. ATHEISM. Blight of

THEY eat Their daily bread and draw the breath of Heaven Without or thought or thanks. Heaven'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.

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 ?—

Then bind the palm, thy sage's brow to suit, Of blasted leaf, and death-distilling fruit ! Ah me! the laurell'd wreath that murder rears, Blood-nursed, and water'd by the widow's tears, Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dreadh As waves the nightshade round the sceptic's head. What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain ? I smile on death, if heavenward hope remain ! But, if the warring winds of Nature's strife Be all the faithless charter of my life, If Chance awaked, inexorable power! This frail and feverish being of an hour, Doom'd o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep, Swift as the tempest travels on the deep, To know Delight but by her parting smile, And toil, and wish, and weep, a little while ; Then melt, ye elements, that form'd in vain This troubled pulse, and visionary brain ! Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom ! And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb! Truth, ever lovely, since the world began, The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man,How can thy words from balmy slumber start Reposing Virtue, pillow'd on the heart ! Yet, if thy voice the note of thunder rollid, And that were true which Nature never told, Let Wisdom smile not on her conquer'd field : No rapture dawns, no treasure is reveal'd ! Oh ! let her read, nor loudly, nor elate, The doom that bars us from a better fate ! Bat, sad as angels for the good man's sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in !

Campbell.

231. ATHEIST. Labour of the

THE unbeliever, Despising reason, revelation, God, And kicking 'gainst the pricks of conscience, rush'd Deliriously upon the bossy shield Of the Omnipotent; and in his heart Purposed to deify the idol Chance. And labour'd hard-oh, labour worse than nought ! And toil'd with dark and crooked reasoning, To make the fair and lovely Earth, which dwelt In sight of Heaven, a cold and fatherless, Forsaken thing, that wander'd on, forlorn, Undestined, uncompassion'd, unupheld; A vapour eddying in the whirl of chance, And soon to vanish everlastingly. He travail'd sorely, and made many a tack, His sails oft shifting, to arrive-dread thoughtArrive at utter nothingness; and have Being no more-no feeling, memory, No lingering consciousness that e'er he was. Guilt's midnight wish ! last, most abhorred thought, Most desperate effort of extremest sin. Others, preoccupied, ne'er saw true hope ; He, seeing, aim'd to stab her to the heart, And with infernal chemistry to wring The last sweet drop from sorrow's cup of gall; To quench the only ray that cheer'd the earth, And leave mankind in night which had no star. Others the streams of pleasure troubled ; he Toil'd much to dry her very fountain-head. Unpardonable man! sold under sin ! He was the Devil's pioneer, who cut The fences down of Virtue, sapp'd her walls, And open'd a smooth and easy way to death. Traitor to all existence! to all life! Soul-suicide! determined foe of being ! Intended murderer of God, Most High ! Strange road, most strange! to seek for happiness!

Pollok.

229. ATHEISM : often falsely imputed.

WHEN prejudice and strong aversion work,
All whose opinions we dislike are atheists.
Now 'tis a term of art, a bugbear word,
The villain's engine, and the vulgar's terror.
The man who thinks and judges for himself,
Unsway'd by aged follies, reverend errors,
Grown holy by traditionary dulness
Of school authority, he is an atheist.
The man who, hating idle noise, preserves
A pure religion seated in his soul,
He is a silent dumb dissembling atheist !

Sewell. 230. ATHEISM. Wilful

232. ATONEMENT. Completeness of the

LORD, I believe Thy precious blood,
Which at the mercy-seat of God
For ever doth for sinners plead,
For me-e'en for my soul-was shed.

The owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings across the moon, Drops his blue-fringed lids and shuts them close, And, hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, Where is it?'-S. T. Coleridge.