When his days on earth are over, Where or what his state should be.

But the page of inspiration

Casts a light upon the whole, Bringing peace and consolation

To the never-dying soul.

Alexander Letham.

There is a God, all nature speaks,

Through earth, and air, and seas, and skies; See, from the clouds His glory breaks, When the first beams of morning rise!

The rising sun, serenely bright,

O'er the wide world's extended frame Inscribes, in characters of light,

His mighty Maker's glorious name.

Anne Steele.

Nature is man's best teacher. She unfolds
Her treasures to his search, unseals his eye,

Illumes his mind, and purifies his heart,
An influence breathes from all the sights and sounds
Of her existence; she is wisdom's self.-Street.

There's not a plant that springeth,
But bears some good to earth;
There's not a life but bringeth
Its store of harmless mirth :
The dusty, wayside clover

Has honey in its cells,-
The wild bee, humming over,

Her tale of pleasure tells; The osiers, o'er the fountain,

Keep cool the water's breast,And on the roughest mountain

The softest moss is press'd. Thus holy Nature teaches

The worth of blessings small, That Love pervades, and reaches,

And forms the bliss of all.-Mrs Hale.

2564. NATURE. Temple of

NOT vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth--o'er gazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek
The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!
Byron.

Live thou with God in Nature: never falter
In thy communings with Him. Be

Like those blest birds we read of in the Psalter, Who found a home from peril free

In God's own house, and nestled near His altar, Making it ring with melody.

That temple stands no more,

But Nature standeth still: God's holy presence Abideth with us, and the offering

Of thankful joy to Him whose perfect essence Is perfect love, our glowing lips may bring, Till this brief life is o'er ;

And in a brighter, better,

Our spirits know no fetter.-Bethune.

Go abroad

Upon the paths of Nature, and when all
Its voices whisper, and its silent things
Are breathing the deep beauty of the world,
Kneel at its simple altar, and the God,
Who hath the living waters, shall be there.
Willis.

2565. NECESSITY.

It was, we own, subject of much debate,
And worthy men stood on opposing sides,
Whether the cup of mortal life had more
Of sour or sweet. Vain question this, when ask'd
In general terms, and worthy to be left
Unsolved. The sweet was in the taste,
The beauty in the eye, and in the ear
The melody; and in the man-for God
Necessity of sinning laid on none.-Pollok.

Necessity, like electricity,

Is in ourselves and all things, and no more Without us than within us.-Bailey.

We will and act and talk of liberty;
And all our wills and all our doings both
Are limited within this little life.
Free will is but necessity in play,-
The clattering of the golden reins which guide
The thunder-footed coursers of the sun.-Bailey.

The ship which goes to sea inform'd with fire,-
Obeying only its own iron force,

Reckless of adverse tides, breeze dead, or weak
As infant's sporting breath, too faint to stir
The feather held before it,-is as much
The appointed thrall of all the elements,
As the white-bosom'd bark which woos the wind,
And when it dies desists. And thus with man ;
However contrary he set his heart

To God, he is but working out His will ;
And, at an infinite angle, more or less
Obeying his own soul's necessity.-Bailey.

WHAT is the good man and the wise?
Ofttimes a pearl which none doth prize;

Or jewel rare, which men account
A common pebble, and despise.

Set forth upon the world's bazaar,
It mildly gleams, but no one buys,
Till it in anger Heaven withdraws
From the world's undiscerning eyes:
And in its shell the pearl again,
And in its mine the jewel, lies.-Oriental.
2567. NEGLECT. The sinner's

THE husbandman, who sluggishly forgot

In spring to plough and sow, could censure none,
Though winter clamour'd round his empty barns.
But he who having thus neglected, did
Refuse, when autumn came, and famine threaten'd,
To reap the golden field that charity

Bestow'd-nay, more obdurate, proud, and blind,
And stupid still, refused, though much beseech'd,
And long entreated, even with Mercy's tears,
To eat what to his very lips was held,
Cook'd temptingly—he certainly, at least,
Deserved to die of hunger, unbemoan'd.
So did the wicked spurn the grace of God,
And so were punish'd with the second death.

THY neighbour? It is he whom thou

Hast power to aid and bless ;

Whose aching heart and burning brow

Thy soothing hand may press.

Thy neighbour? 'Tis the fainting poor,
Whose eye with want is dim;
Whom hunger sends from door to door ;-
Go thou and succour him.

Thy neighbour? 'Tis that wearied man
Whose years are at their brim,

Bent low with sickness, cares, and pain!-
Go thou and comfort him.

Thy neighbour? 'Tis the heart bereft

Of every earthly gem;
Widow and orphan, helpless left ;—
Go thou and shelter them.

Thy neighbour? Yonder toiling slave,
Fetter'd in thought and limb,

2569. NEW YEAR. Uncertainty of the

COULD I, from heaven inspired, as sure presage
To whom the rising year shall prove his last,
As I can number in my punctual page

And item down the victims of the past;

How each would trembling wait the mournful sheet
On which the press might stamp him next to die;
And, reading here his sentence, how replete
With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his eye!
Then doubtless many a trifler, on the brink
Of this world's hazardous and headlong shore,
Forced to a pause, would feel it good to think,
Told that his setting sun must rise no more.

Ah, self-deceived! could I prophetic say

Who next is fated, and who next to fall, The rest might then seem privileged to play; But, naming none, the Voice now speaks to all. Cowper.

2570. NEW YEAR'S THANKSGIVING.

O LOVING One! O bounteous One!
What have I not received from Thee,
Throughout the seasons that have gone
Into the past eternity?

Lowly my name, and mine estate;
Yet, Father, many a child of Thine,
Of purer heart and cleaner hands,
Walks in a humbler path than mine.
And, looking backward through the year,
Along the way my feet have press'd,
I see sweet places everywhere,

Sweet places where my soul had rest.
For though some human hopes of mine
Are dead and buried from my sight,
Yet from their graves immortal flowers
Have sprung and blossom'd into light.
Body, and heart, and soul have been

Fed by the most convenient food;
My nights are peaceful all the while,

And all my mortal days are good.
My sorrows have not been so light,
Thy chastening hand I could not trace;
Nor have my blessings been so great
That they have hid my Father's face.

2571. NIGHT. Charms of

Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims:
Such harmony is in immortal souls ;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Shakespeare.

Now glow'd the firmament

With livid sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in cloudy majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.-Milton.

But see where, in the clear, unclouded sky,

The crescent moon, with calm and sweet rebuke,
Doth charm away the spirit of complaint.
Her tender light falls on the snow-clad hills,
Like the pure thoughts that angels might bestow
Upon this world of beauty and of sin,
That mingle not with that wherein they rest;
So should immortal spirits dwell below.
There is a holy influence in the moon,
And in the countless hosts of silent stars,
The heart cannot resist : its passions sleep,
And all is still save that which shall awake
When all the vast and fair creation sleeps.

2572. NIGHT. Moral of

Mrs Follen.

BEHOLD the world

Rests, and her tired inhabitants have paused
From trouble and turmoil. The widow now
Has ceased to weep, and her twin orphans lie
Lock'd in each arm, partakers of her rest.
The man of sorrow has forgot his woes;
The outcast that his head is shelterless,
His griefs unshared. The mother tends no more
Her daughter's dying slumbers, but surprised
With heaviness, and sunk upon her couch,
Dreams of her bridals. Even the hectic, lull'd
On Death's lean arm to rest, in visions wrapp'd,
Crowning with Hope's bland wreath his shuddering

nurse,

Poor victim! smiles. Silence and deep repose
Reign o'er the nations ;. and the warning voice
Of nature utters audibly within

The general moral-tells us that repose,
Death-like as this, but of far longer span,
Is coming on us—that the weary crowds,
Who now enjoy a temporary calm,
Shall soon taste lasting quiet, wrapp'd around
With grave-cloths; and their aching, restless heads
Mouldering in holes and corners unobserved,
Till the last trump shall break their sullen sleep.
H. Kirke White.

2573. NIGHT. Temple of
AND how I bless night's consecrating shades,
Which to a temple turn a universe;

2575. NO ROOM FOR JESUS.

O PLODDING life! crowded so full
Of earthly toil and care!
The body's daily need receives
The first and last concern, and leaves
No room for Jesus there.

O busy brain! by night and day
Working, with patience rare,
Problems of worldly loss or gain,
Thinking till thought becomes a pain-
No room for Jesus there.

O throbbing heart! so quick to feel
In others' woes a share,

Yet human loves each power enthrall,
And sordid treasures fill it all-
No room for Jesus there.

O sinful soul! thus to debase

The being God doth spare!

Blood-bought thou art! no more thine own;
Heart, brain, life, all are His alone-

Make room for Jesus there,

Lest soon the bitter day shall come

When vain will be thy prayer

To find in Jesus' heart a place: For ever closed the door of grace,

Thou'lt gain no entrance there.

2576. NOBILITY: not an accident of birth.

WHOE'ER amidst the sons

Of reason, valour, liberty, and virtue,

Displays distinguish'd merit, is a noble

Of nature's own creating. Such have risen,

Sprung from the dust; or where had been our

honours?-Thomson.

Look round

Among the titled great ones of the world;

Do they not spring from some proud monarch's flatterer,

Some favourite mistress, or ambitious minister,
The ruin of his country, while their blood

Rolls down through many a fool, through many a villain,

To its now proud possessors?-Frances.

There's no power In ancestry to make the foolish wise, The ignorant learn'd, the cowardly and base Deserving our respect as brave and good. All men feel this: nor dares the despot say His fiat can endow with truth the soul, Or, like a pension, on the heart bestow The virtues current in the realms above.

Nor a brow that's bound with gold,

Nor gate on mighty hinges roll'd.

The king is he, who, void of fear,
Looks abroad with bosom clear;
Who can tread ambition down,
Nor be sway'd by smile or frown:
Nor for all the treasure cares
That mine conceals, or harvest wears,
Or that golden sands deliver,
Bosom'd in a glassy river.
What shall move his placid might?
Not the headlong thunder-light,
Nor all the shapes of slaughter's trade,
With onward lance, or fiery blade.
Safe, with wisdom for his crown,
He looks on all things calmly down;
He welcomes Fate, when Fate is near,
Nor taints his dying breath with fear.

No-to fear not earthly thing,
That is all that makes the king;
And all of us, whoe'er we be,

May carve us out that royalty.

Three-volumed, and once read, and oft cramm'd full
Of poisonous error, blackening every page;
And oftener still of trifling, second-hand
Remark, and old, diseased, putrid thought;
And miserable incident, at war
With nature, with itself and truth at war:
Yet charming still the greedy reader on,
Till, done, he tried to recollect his thoughts,
And nothing found but dreaming emptiness.
These, like ephemera, sprung in a day,
From lean and shallow-soilèd brains of sand,
And in a day expired; yet while they lived,
Tremendous ofttimes was the popular roar;
And cries of Live for ever! struck the skies.

2579. NOVELS. Vicious

Pollok.

YE writers of what none with safety reads,
Footing it in the dance that fancy leads ;
Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend,
Snivelling and drivelling folly without end,

Whose corresponding misses fill the ream
With sentimental frippery and dream,
Caught in a delicate soft silken net

By some lewd earl or rakehell baronet ;
Ye pimps who, under virtue's fair pretence,
Steal to the closet of young Innocence,
And teach her, unexperienced yet and green,
To scribble as you scribble at fifteen ;
Who, kindling a combustion of desire,
With some cold moral think to quench the fire,
Though all your engineering proves in vain,
The dribble stream ne'er puts it out again :
Oh that a verse had power, and could command
Far, far away, these flesh-flies of the land,
Who fasten without mercy on the fair,
And suck, and leave a craving maggot there!

OATHS terminate, as Paul observes, all strife—
Some men have surely then a peaceful life.
Whatever subject occupy discourse,
The feats of Vestris, or the naval force,
Asseveration blustering in your face
Makes contradiction such a hopeless case;
In every tale they tell, or false or true,
Well known, or such as no man ever knew,
They fix attention, heedless of your pain,
With oaths like rivets forced into the brain;
And even when sober truth prevails throughout,
They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt.
A Persian, humble servant of the sun,
Who, though devout, yet bigotry had none,
Hearing a lawyer, grave in his address,
With adjurations every word impress,
Supposed the man a bishop, or at least,
God's name so much upon his lips, a priest;
Bow'd at the close with all his graceful airs,
And begg'd an interest in his frequent prayers.
Cowper.