Thou Patriarchs' joy, Thou Prophets' song,
Thou heavenly Day-spring, look'd for long,
Thou Son of Man, Incarnate Word,
Great David's Son, great David's Lord!

Come, Jesus, glorious, heavenly Guest,
Keep Thine own Christmas in our breast!
Then David's harp-strings, hush'd so long,
Shall swell our Jubilee of song.

Tr. from the Danish by Chas. P. Krauth.

503. CHRISTMAS. Song of

IT came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold:
'Peace to the earth, good-will to men
From heaven's all-gracious King!'
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurl'd;
And still their heavenly music floats

O'er all the weary world :
Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on heavenly wing, And ever o'er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffer'd long :
Beneath the angel-strain have roll'd
Two thousand years of wrong;
And men, at war with men, hear not

The love-song which they bring :
Oh! hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

And ye, beneath life's crushing load
Whose forms are bending low;
Who toil along the climbing way

With painful steps and slow,-
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh! rest beside the weary road,

And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold;

When Peace shall over all the earth

Its ancient splendours fling,

And the whole world send back the song Which now the angels sing.

Edmund H. Sears.

504. CHRISTMAS. The Christmas Angels. THE Christmas angels, is their mission ended? They are not seen by mortal eyes, as when O'er Bethlehem's plain their shining troops descended,

6

And chanted, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men.'
The voices that once join'd the heavenly chorus—
That mighty Gloria,' echoing far and wide-
Are floating in the wintry starlight o'er us,
And singing sweetly every Christmas-tide.
Far over snow-clad hills and moorlands dreary
Is heard the rushing of each silver wing;
Wherever homes are sad or hearts are weary

The blessed Christmas angels come and sing.
In the dim alleys of the crowded city
They enter, where the sunbeams never came;
Unbidden guests, yet full of tender pity

For all earth's bitter misery and shame.

And then despairing hearts look up and wonder Whence came that sudden hope they feel within, Bidding them rise and break their bonds asunderThose heavy fetters forged by want and sin.

The angels sing of holy aspirations,

Of pure and happy things, of better times;

Until the soul is stirr'd by strange vibrations,
That seem as if they came from Christmas chimes.

And new desires, to resolutions growing,

Are slowly shaped and fashion'd into form; Till frozen hearts become all warm and glowing, And gain fresh strength to battle with the storm. In the vast minster, where the anthems olden In glorious waves of music ebb and flowThose voices from 'Jerusalem the Golden,' Are singing ever with the Church below. And in the rustic church that rises lowly Amid encircling hills or woodlands dim, The simple song of gratitude is holy,

For angels join the poor man's Christmas hymn. Those humble walls can boast no sculptured splendour,

Yet is the hallelujah just as sweet;
For angels and archangels sing, and render

The feeble notes all perfect and complete.
And we of them their gentle tones may borrow,
While this old world is full of grief and wrong;
The word of sympathy in time of sorrow
Is pure and precious as an angel's song.

And loving lips, which faithfully endeavour

To speak their Lord's glad tidings far and nearThe old, old story, that is new for ever

Oh these are breathing heaven's own music here!

505. CHURCH. Conduct in

WHEN once thy foot enters the church, be bare.
God is more there than thou: for thou art there
Only by His permission. Then beware,

And make thyself all reverence and fear.

Kneeling ne'er spoil'd silk stockings: quit thy state,

All equal are within the church's gate.

Let vain or busy thoughts have there no part :
Bring not thy plough, thy plots, thy pleasures thither.
Christ purged His temple, so must thou thy heart.
All worldly thoughts are but thieves met together
To cozen thee. Look to thy actions well:
For churches either are our Heaven or Hell!
George Herbert.

508. CHURCH. A fashionable
Look on this edifice of marble made-
How fair it swells, too beautiful to fade.
See what fine people in its portals crowd,
Smiling and greeting, talking, laughing loud!
What is it? Surely not a gay Exchange,
Where Wit and Beauty social joys arrange;
Not a grand shop, where late Parisian styles
Attract rich buyers from a thousand miles?
But step within: no need of further search;
Behold, admire a fashionable church!
Look how its oriel window glits and gleams,
Where tinted light magnificently streams

On the proud pulpit, carved with quaint device,
Where velvet cushions, exquisitely nice,
Press'd by the polish'd preacher's dainty hands,
Hold a large volume clasp'd by golden bands.

509. CHURCH. The first

THE perfect world, by Adam trod,

Was the first Temple-built by God

His fiat laid the corner-stone,

Park.

And heaved its pillars, one by one.- Willis.

In Lebanon's deep quarries hewn, and on its mountains wrought;

There rung the hammer's heavy stroke among the echoing rocks,

There chased the chisel's keen, sharp edge, the rude, unshapen blocks.

Thence polish'd, perfected, complete, each fitted to its place,

For lofty coping, massive wall, or deep imbedded base,

They bore them o'er the waves that roll'd their billowy swell between

The shores of Tyre's imperial pride and Judah's hills of green.

With gradual toil the work went on, through days and months and years,

Beneath the summer's laughing sun, and winter's frozen tears;

And thus in majesty sublime and noiseless pomp it

rose,

Fit dwelling for the God of Peace! a temple of repose!

Brethren in Christ! to holier things the simple type apply;

Our God Himself a temple builds, eternal and on high,

Of souls elect; their Zion there-that world of light and bliss ;

Their Lebanon - the place of toil of previous moulding-this.

From nature's quarries, deep and dark, with gracious aim He hews

The stones, the spiritual stones, it pleaseth Him to choose:

Hard, rugged, shapeless at the first, yet destined each to shine,

Moulded beneath His patient hand in purity Divine. Oh, glorious process! see the proud grow lowly, gentle, meek;

See floods of unaccustom'd tears gush down the harden'd cheek:

Perchance the hammer's heavy stroke o'erthrew some idol fond;

Perchance the chisel rent in twain some precious,

tender bond.

Behold he prays whose lips were seal'd in silent scorn before;

Sighs for the closet's holy calm, and hails the welcome door;

Behold he works for Jesus now, whose days went idly past :

Oh! for more mouldings of the hand that works a change so vast!

Ye look'd on one, a well-wrought stone, a saint of God matured,

What chisellings that heart had felt, what chastening strokes endured!

But mark'd ye not that last soft touch, what perfect grace it gave,

Ere Jesus bore His servant home, across the darksome wave?

Home to the place His grace design'd that chosen soul to fill,

In the bright temple of the saved, upon His holy hill;'

Home to the noiselessness, the peace of those sweet shrines above,

Whose stones shall never be displaced-set in redeeming love.

Lord, chisel, chasten, polish us, each blemish work away,

Cleanse us with purifying blood, in spotless robes

array;

And thus, Thine image on us stamp'd, transport us to the shore,

Where not a stroke was ever felt, for none is needed

more.

512. CHURCH. The: a Lighthouse.

THE light-house founded on a rock,

Casts o'er the flood its radiant eye,

Firm amidst ocean's heaviest shock,

Serene beneath the stormiest sky. Though winds and waters rage and foam, Though darkness lowers like Egypt's night,

Here peace and safety find a home;

In this small Goshen there is light.

A little flock! 'Tis well, 'tis well;
Such be her lot and name;
Through ages past it has been so,

And now 'tis still the same.

But the chief Shepherd comes at length, Her feeble days are o'er;

No more a handful in the earth,

A little flock no more.

No more a lily among thorns;
Weary, and faint, and few,

But countless as the stars of heaven,
Or as the early dew.

Then entering the eternal halls,

In robes of victory,

That mighty multitude shall keep
The joyous jubilee.
Unfading palms they bear aloft,
Unfaltering songs they sing ;
Unending festival they keep,
In presence of the King!-Bonar.

THE Banyan of the Indian isle

Strikes deeply down its massive root, And spreads its branching life abroad,

And bends to earth with scarlet fruit ; But when the branches reach the ground, They firmly plant themselves again: They rise and spread and droop and root, An ever-green and endless chain. And so the Church of Jesus Christ, The blessed Banyan of our God, Fast-rooted upon Zion's mount,

Has sent its sheltering arms abroad; And every branch that from it springs, In sacred beauty spreading wide, As low it bends to bless the earth, Still plants another by its side. Long as the world itself shall last, The sacred Banyan still shall spread; From clime to clime, from age to age, Its sheltering shadow shall be shed. Nations shall seek its pillar'd shade, Its leaves shall for their healing be: The circling flood that feeds its life,

The blood that crimson'd Calvary.

518. CHURCH. Stability of the
OH where are kings and empires now,
Of old that went and came?
But, Lord, Thy Church is praying yet,
A thousand years the same.

We mark her goodly battlements,
And her foundations strong;
We hear within the solemn voice
Of her unending song.

For not like kingdoms of the world

Thy holy Church, O God!

Though earthquake shocks are threat'ning her,
And tempests are abroad;
Unshaken as eternal hills,

Immovable she stands,

A mountain that shall fill the earth,

A house not made with hands.-A. C. Coxe.

519. CHURCH OF ROME: her claims.

THEY Would assume, with wondrous art, Themselves to be the whole who are but part Of that vast frame the Church; yet grant they were The handers down, can they from thence infer A right t' interpret? Or would they alone, Who brought the present, claim it for their own? Dryden.

520. CHURCH-YARD: the place where all men are equal.

THE solitary, silent, solemn scene,
Where Caesars, heroes, peasants, hermits lie
Blended in dust together; where the slave
Rests from his labours; where th' insulting proud
Resigns his power, the miser drops his hoard;
Where human folly sleeps. --Dyer.

521. CHURCH-YARD. The village

BENEATH those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure ; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

The short and simple annals of the poor.