WHEN on Sinai's top I see
God descend in majesty,
To proclaim his holy law,
All my spirit sinks with awe.
When in ecstacy sublime,
Tabor's glorious steep I climb,
At the too transporting light,
Darkness rushes o'er my sight,
When on Calvary I rest,
God, in flesh made manifest,
Shines in my Redeemer's face
Full of beauty, truth, and grace,
Here I would for ever stay,
Weep, and gaze my soul away;
Thou art heaven on earth to me,
Lovely, mournful, Calvary.
J. MONTGOMERY.
no sufficient security but in the pledge of total abstinence, used as a means of grace, in dependence on the Divine blessing. Let him, whose besetting sin is drunkenness, but taste the ensnaring cup, and it will be a miracle indeed, if he, who tampers with the temptation, does not again fall into his old evil habits, and become "a conscience smitten, outcast, wretched man.'
Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 2 Tim. vi., 19.
LET all who name his blessed name,
Who once for sinners shed his blood,
Depart from sin, and count it shame
To live like those that know not God.
What kind of persons should they be,
Whose names appear enrolled above?
The people whom the Lord makes free,
To whom he manifests his love.
What kind of persons should they be?
How blameless should their lives appear!
Who hope the Lord in heaven to see,
And dwell with him for ever there.
With hopes so blessed and so bright,
Of heaven they well may think and talk; And being children of the light,
As children of the light should walk.
The sons of God-they well may scorn
The highest honours here on earth :
To heaven's eternal honours born,
To stoop-would ill become their birth.
And when a few short years are past,
What's promised now will then be given-
A goodly portion, theirs at last,
The glories and the joys of heaven.
THE DYING SOLDIER.
SEEST thou that dying Soldier on the ground,
Whose life is ebbing from a ghastly wound?
He hath no bed, except the frozen snow,
No friend to wipe the death-damp from his brow:
His eye is struggling through the mist afar
To catch the glimmer of that feeble star:
Why doth he seek its light so faint and dim ?
It is no star of hope, alas! to him,
Ay-but it shineth on his quiet home
That rest of peace, where war hath never come. Within his fancy, even now,
The old thatched roof beneath the linden trees;
The cradle, where his youngest infant sleeps,
Rock'd by his widow'd wife, who bends and weeps.
He sees his children that around her kneel,
And try to calm the grief they cannot feel;
Then weeps and prays to God once more for those
Whose hearts would bleed, did they but know his
HEAVENLY DESIRES.
O Jesus teach me like thyself to fly
This poisonous world, and all its charms defy.
Give me devotion which shall never tire,
Fix'd contemplation which my love may fire;
A heavenly tincture in my whole discourse:
A fervent zeal which may my prayers enforce:
Of heavenly joys a sweet foretasting view;
That I on earth may only beaven pursue.
BISHOP KEN.
I LOVE Thee, O my native Isle !
Dear as my mother's earliest smile;
Sweet as my father's voice to me
Is all I hear, and all I see.
I love Thee, when I mark thy soil
Flourish beneath the peasants' toil,
And from its lap of verdure throw
Pleasures which neither Indies know.
I love Thee, when I contemplate
The simple grandeur of thy state;
Thy laws and liberties that rise
Man's noblest works beneath the skies.
I love Thee, when I see thee stand
The hope of every other land;
A sea-mark in the tide of time,
Rearing to heaven thy brow sublime.
I love Thee, when I hear thy voice
Bid a despairing world rejoice,
And loud from shore to shore proclaim
In every tongue the Saviour's name.
J. MONTGOMERY.
THE BRIGHT AND MORNING STAR.
How beauteous is the tranquil lake,
That on its breast doth bear,
Reflected from the clear blue sky,
"The bright and morning star."
But I am like the troubled sea
Whose waters cannot rest,
While earthly passions rise and swell,
Tumultuous in my breast.
And if sometimes upon the wave,
A gleam of light should play,
Succeeding billows soon remove
The weak unsteady ray.
Awake! awake! sweet southern wind,
Breathe gently o'er my soul;
And bid each restless wave be still,
Beneath thy soft control.
That, with my troubled spirit calmed,
may for ever bear,
Reflected in a tranquil breast,
The bright and morning star.
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