Ye saw of old on chaos rise
The beauteous pillars of the skies;
Ye know where morn exulting springs,
And evening folds her drooping wings.

· Bright heralds of th' Eternal Will,
Abroad his errands ye fulfil;
Or, throned in floods of beamy day,
Symphonious, in his presence play.

Loud is the song, the heavenly plain
Is shaken by the choral strain,
And dying echoes, floating far,
Draw music from each chiming star.

But I amid your choirs shall shine,
And all your knowledge will be mine;
Ye on your harps must lean to hear
A secret chord that mine will bear.
THOMAS HILLHOUSE.

NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE.

NEARER, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee !
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;

Still all my song shall be, -
Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

Though, like the wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone;

Yet in my dreams I'd be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!

There let the way appear

Steps unto heaven; All that thou sendest me

In mercy given; Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

Then with my waking thoughts,

Bright with thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I'll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!

Or if on joyful wing,
Cleaving the sky,

Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly;

FROM the recesses of a lowly spirit,
Our humble prayer ascends; O Father! hear it.
Upsoaring on the wings of awe and meekness,
Forgive its weakness!

We see thy hand, it leads us, it supports us;
We hear thy voice, - it counsels and it courts us;
And then we turn away; and still thy kindness
Forgives our blindness.

O, how long-suffering, Lord! but thou delightest To win with love the wandering: thou invitest, By smiles of mercy, not by frowns or terrors, Man from his errors.

Father and Saviour! plant within each bosom The seeds of holiness, and bid them blossom In fragrance and in beauty bright and vernal, And spring eternal.

JOHN BOWRING.

PRAISE TO GOD, IMMORTAL PRAISE

PRAISE to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days,-
Bounteous source of every joy,

Let thy praise our tongues employ !

For the blessings of the field,
For the stores the gardens yield,
For the vine's exalted juice,
For the generous olive's use;

Flocks that whiten all the plain,
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain,
Clouds that drop their fattening dews,
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse;

All that Spring, with bounteous hand,
Scatters o'er the smiling land;
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o'erflowing stores :

These to thee, my God, we owe,
Source whence all our blessings flow!
And for these my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.

Yet should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear,

Thy providence my life sustained,
And all my wants redrest,
When in the silent womb I lay,

And hung upon the breast.

To all my weak complaints and cries
Thy mercy lent an ear,
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learnt
To form themselves in prayer.
Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom those comforts flowed.

When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm unseen conveyed me safe,
And led me up to man.

Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently cleared my way,

And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be feared than they.

When worn with sickness oft hast thou
With health renewed my face;
And, when in sins and sorrows sunk,
Revived my soul with grace.

Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss

Has made my cup run o'er,

And in a kind and faithful friend
Has doubled all my store.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart,
That tastes those gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I'll pursue ;

And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.

When nature fails, and day and night
Divide thy works no more,
My ever-grateful heart, O Lord,
Thy mercy shall adore.

Through all eternity to thee

A joyful song I'll raise; For O, eternity's too short To utter all thy praise!

JOSEPH ADDISON.

THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS!

AND is there care in heaven? And is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures base, That may compassion of their evils move? There is clse much more wretched were the

case

Of men then beasts: but O the exceeding grace
Of Highest God! that loves his creatures so,
And all his workes with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with goldon pinions cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant!
They for us fight, they watch, and dewly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward;
O, why should heavenly God to men have such
regard!

EDMUND SPENSER.

ETERNAL SOURCE OF EVERY JOY!

ETERNAL Source of every joy!
Well may thy praise our lips employ,
While in thy temple we appear
Whose goodness crowns the circling year.

While as the wheels of nature roll, Thy hand supports the steady pole; The sun is taught by thee to rise, And darkness when to veil the skies.

The flowery spring at thy command
Embalms the air, and paints the land;
The summer rays with vigor shine
To raise the corn, and cheer the vine.

Thy hand in autumn richly pours
Through all our coasts redundant stores;
And winters, softened by thy care,
No more a face of horror wear.

Seasons, and months, and weeks, and days
Demand successive songs of praise;
Still be the cheerful homage paid
With opening light and evening shade.

Here in thy house shall incense rise,
As circling Sabbaths bless our eyes;
Still will we make thy mercies known
Around thy board, and round our own.

O, may our more harmonious tongues In worlds unknown pursue the songs; And in those brighter courts adore, Where days and years revolve no more.

PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT ON HIGH.

[This hymn originally appeared in the Spectator, and is thence popularly, but erroneously, supposed to have been composed by ADDISON.]

THE spacious firmament on high,

With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim;
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land

The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth

Repeats the story of her birth; While all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though, in solemn silence, all

Move round the dark terrestrial ball? What though no real voice or sound

Amid their radiant orbs be found?

HYMN AND PRAYER FOR THE USE OF BELIEVERS.

LORD! when those glorious lights I see

With which thou hast adorned the skies, Observing how they moved be,

And how their splendor fills mine eyes, Methinks it is too large a grace,

But that thy love ordained it so,
That creatures in so high a place

Should servants be to man below.
The meanest lamp now shining there
In size and lustre doth exceed
The noblest of thy creatures here,

And of our friendship hath no need.
Yet these upon mankind attend
For secret aid or public light;
And from the world's extremest end
Repair unto us every night.

O, had that stamp been undefaced

Which first on us thy hand had set, How highly should we have been graced, Since we are so much honored yet! Good God, for what but for the sake

Of thy beloved and only Son, Who did on him our nature take,

Were these exceeding favors done

As we by him have honored been,
Let us to him due honors give;
Let his uprightness hide our sin,

And let us worth from him receive.
Yea, so let us by grace improve
What thou by nature doth bestow,
That to thy dwelling-place above
We may be raised from below.

HYMN.

GEORGE WITHER.

BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines
How silently! Around thee and above

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale! 0, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink, Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald, - wake, O, wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!

Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome

voice!

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! Thou, too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,.

Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure

serene,

Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast, ·
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me, Rise, O, ever rise !
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

THOU ART, O GOD

"The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter."- PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God!-let the torrents, like a shout of nations,

THOU art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,

Are but reflections caught from thee.
Where'er we turn thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine!

When day, with farewell beam, delays

Among the opening clouds of even, And we can almost think we gaze

Through golden vistas into heaven,
Those hues that make the sun's decline
So soft, so radiant, Lord! are thine.

When night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes,
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are thine.

When youthful spring around us breathes,

Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh; And every flower the summer wreathes Is born beneath that kindling eye. Where'er we turn, thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are thine!

THOMAS MOORE.

THE HEAVENS DECLARE THY GLORY,

LORD!

PSALM XIX.

THE heavens declare thy glory, Lord!
In every star thy wisdom shines ;
But when our eyes behold thy word,
We read thy name in fairer lines.

The rolling sun, the changing light,
And nights and days thy power confess;
But the blest volume thou hast writ

Reveals thy justice and thy grace.

Sun, moon, and stars convey thy praise Round the whole earth, and never stand; So when thy truth began its race

It touched and glanced on every land.

Nor shall thy spreading gospel rest

Till through the world thy truth has run ; Till Christ has all the nations blest

That see the light or feel the sun.

Great Sun of Righteousness, arise!

Bless the dark world with heavenly light! Thy gospel makes the simple wise,

Thy laws are pure, thy judgments right. Thy noblest wonders here we view,

In souls renewed and sins forgiven; Lord, cleanse my sins, my soul renew, And make thy word my guide to heaven!

ISAAC WATTS.

GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY.

GOD moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform ;

He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill

He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take!
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.