Thou Patriarchs' joy, Thou Prophets' song, Come, Jesus, glorious, heavenly Guest, Tr. from the Danish by Chas. P. Krauth. 503. CHRISTMAS. Song of IT came upon the midnight clear, Still through the cloven skies they come, O'er all the weary world : 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 love-song which they bring : And ye, beneath life's crushing load With painful steps and slow,- And hear the angels sing. For lo! the days are hastening on, 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 blessed Christmas angels come and sing. 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, 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; The feeble notes all perfect and complete. 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. 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 : 508. CHURCH. A fashionable On the proud pulpit, carved with quaint device, 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; 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; But countless as the stars of heaven, Then entering the eternal halls, In robes of victory, That mighty multitude shall keep 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 We mark her goodly battlements, For not like kingdoms of the world Thy holy Church, O God! Though earthquake shocks are threat'ning her, 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, 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. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Their name, their years, spelt by the unletter'd muse, Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; The applause of listening senates to command, And read their history in a nation's eyes. Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; With incense kindled at the muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 522. CIRCUMVENTION. THEY must sweep my way, And marshal me to knavery: let it work- Bear your wrongs conceal'd, And patient as the tortoise; let this camel Stalk o'er your back unbruised: sleep with the lion, 523. CITIZENS. THESE base mechanics never keep their words The fawning citizen, whose love's bought dearest, The cit―a common councilman by place, Brown. With nice precision parcels out the state; Wielding aloft the politician's rod, Makes Pitt by turns a devil and a god : Maintains ev'n to the very teeth of power, The same thing right and wrong in half an hour; With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Now all is well, now he suspects a plot, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. And plainly proves whatever is-is not : |