With reckless heart, with conscience hard and sere,
Thy gifts perverted and Thy power defied;
Oh grant me, now that wintry snows appear
Around my brow, and youth's bright promise hide— Grant me with reverential awe to hear
Thy holy voice, and in Thy word confide! Blot from my book of life its early stain ! Since days misspent will never more return, My future path do Thou in mercy trace;
So cause my soul with pious zeal to burn, That all the trust which in Thy name I place, Frail as I am, may not prove wholly vain. Pietro Bembo.
602. CONTRITION. Power of
ALL powerful is the penitential sigh
Of true contrition; like the placid wreaths
Of incense, wafted from the righteous shrine
Where Abel minister'd, to the blest seat
Of Mercy, an accepted sacrifice,
Humiliation's conscious plaint ascends.- Hayes.
603. CONTROVERSY : leads to conflict.
SOME day the live coal behind the thought,
Whether from Baal's stone obscene,
Or from the shrine serene
Of God's pure altar brought,
Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen
Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught,
And, helpless in the fiery passion caught,
Shakes all the pillar'd state with shock of men:
Some day the soft Ideal that we woo'd
Confronts us fiercely foe-beset, pursued,
And cries reproachful: Was it, then, my praise,
And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth;
I claim of thee the promise of thy youth;
Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase,
The victim of thy genius, not its mate!'-Lowell.
604. CONVERSATION.
WOULD you both please and be instructed too,
Watch well the rage of shining to subdue:
Hear every man upon his favourite theme,
And ever be more knowing than you seem.
The lowest genius will afford some light,
Or give a hint that had escaped your sight.
'Tis remarkable, that they
Talk most who have the least to say.-Prior.
Be silent always when you doubt your sense;
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.
Pope.
607. CONVICTION : resisted.
IN the silent midnight watches,
List,-thy bosom door!
How it knocketh, knocketh, knocketh,
Knocketh evermore !
Say not 'tis thy pulse is beating:
'Tis thy heart of sin:
'Tis thy Saviour knocks, and crieth,
Rise, and let Me in!
Death comes down, with reckless footstep,
To the hall and hut :
Think you Death will stand a-knocking
Where the door is shut?
Jesus waiteth, waiteth, waiteth ;
But thy door is fast!
Grieved, away thy Saviour goeth:
Death breaks in at last.
Then 'tis thine to stand entreating
Christ to let thee in;
At the gate of heaven beating,
Wailing for thy sin.
Nay, alas! thou foolish virgin,
Hast thou then forgot?
Jesus waited long to know thee,
But He knows thee not!
608. CONVICTION. Strife in
How shall my cold and lifeless prayer ascend,
Father of Mercies! to Thy seat on high,
If, while my lips for Thy deliverance call,
My heart against that liberty contend?
Do Thou, who knowest all, Thy rescue send,
Though every power of mine the help deny.
Eternal God! oh, pardon that I went
Erring so long! whence have my eyes been smit
With darkness, nor the good from evil known?
To spare offenders, being penitent,
Is even ours; to drag them from the pit,
Themselves resisting, Lord, is Thine alone!
THE summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves its dignity;
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
510. COUNTRY LIFE. NONE can describe the sweets of country life, But those blest men that do enjoy and taste them.
Plain husbandmen, though far below our pitch
Of fortune placed, enjoy a wealth above us :
To whom the earth, with true and bounteous justice,
Free from war's cares, returns an easy food.
They breathe the fresh and uncorrupted air,
And by clear brooks enjoy untroubled sleeps.
Their state is fearless and secure, enrich'd
With several blessings, such as greatest kings
Might in true justice envy, and themselves
Would count too happy, if they truly knew them.
This our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Dear solitary groves, where peace does dwell!
Sweet harbours of pure love and innocence!
How willingly could I for ever stay
Beneath the shade of your embracing greens,
List'ning to the harmony of warbling birds,
Tuned with the gentle murmur of the streams.
Rochester.
How rich in humble poverty is he Who leads a quiet country life;
Discharged of business, void of strife!-Dryden.
Here too dwells simple truth; plain innocence;
Unsullied beauty; sound unbroken youth,
Patient of labour, with a little pleased;
Health ever blooming; unambitious toil;
Calm contemplation; and poetic ease.-Thomson.
O knew he but his happiness, of men
The happiest he! who, far from public rage,
Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired,
Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life.
O blest retirement ! friend to life's decline,
Retreats from care, that never must be mine:
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
God made the country, and man made the town ;
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draught
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threaten'd in the fields and groves?
Cowper.
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade,
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where, all his long anxieties forgot
Amidst the charms of a sequester'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was sweet before,
He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span,
And, having lived a trifler, die a man.-Cowper.
Oh friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural leisure pass'd!
Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets,
Though many boast thy favours, and affect
To understand and choose thee for their own.
To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven, to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.-Keats.
Leave the mere country to mere country swains, And dwell where life in all life's glory reigns. Walter Harte.
611. COURAGE. Christian
STAND but your ground, your ghostly foes will fly,-
Hell trembles at a heaven-directed eye;
Choose rather to defend than to assail,—
Self-confidence will in the conflict fail:
When you are challenged, you may dangers meet,-
True courage is a fix'd, not sudden heat;
Is always humble, lives in self-distrust,
And will itself into no danger thrust.
Devote yourself to God, and you will find
God fights the battles of a will resign'd.
Love Jesus! love will no base fear endure;
Love Jesus! and of conquest rest secure.-Ken.
THE brave man is not he who feels no fear,
For that were stupid and irrational;
But he whose noble soul its fear subdues,
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
As for your youth whom blood and blows delight,
Away with them! there is not in their crew
One valiant spirit.-Joanna Baillie.
613. COURAGE. Demand for
THY life's a warfare, thou a soldier art,
Satan's thy foeman, and a faithful heart
Thy two-edged weapon; patience is thy shield,
Heaven is thy chieftain, and the world thy field.
To be afraid to die, or wish for death,
Are words and passions of despairing breath.
Who doth the first, the day doth faintly yield;
And who the second, basely flies the field.-Quarles. | Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause;
625. CREATION : absurdity of Atheism.
THEN from whate'er we can to sense produce,
Common and plain, or wondrous and abstruse,
From Nature's constant or eccentric laws,
The thoughtful soul this gen'ral inference draws,
That an effect must presuppose the cause.-Prior.
Ye sons of art, one curious piece devise,
From whose construction motion shall arise.
Blackmore.
Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To shun their poison, and to choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
628. CREATION. Conservation of
WITH what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along
The illimitable void! Thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft had swept the toiling race of men
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons, ever stealing round
Minutely faithful; such the All-perfect Hand,
That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole.
Thomson.
Inspiring God! who, boundless spirit all,
And unremitting energy, pervades,
Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole.
Thomson.
THE God of nature and of Grace
In all His works appears;
His goodness through the earth we trace,
His grandeur in the spheres.
Behold this fair and fertile globe,
By Him in wisdom plann'd ;
'Twas He who girded like a robe
The ocean round the land.
His blessings fall in plenteous showers
Upon the lap of earth,
That teems with foliage, fruit, and flowers,
And rings with infant mirth.
If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will Paradise be found!-James Montgomery.
630. CREATION: still the scene of the Divine energy.
ALL the world by Thee at first was made,
And daily yet Thou dost the same repair :
Nor aught on earth that merry is and glad,
Nor aught on earth that lovely is and fair,
But Thou the same for pleasure didst prepare.
Spenser.
A mind which through each part infused doth pass,
Fashions and works, and wholly doth transpierce
All this great body of the universe.-Raleigh.
631. CREATOR. Praise to the
Adam. These are Thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty, Thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these Thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power Divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels ; for ye behold Him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle His throne rejoicing; ye in heaven,
On earth join, all ye creatures, to extol
Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end.
Milton.
632. CREED: of the future.
'I DON'T believe in either God or Man. Conscious Automata, we nothing can,
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