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VIII.

Return to Thunder Bay.

(Baie des Tonnères.)

TWICE, Bay of Thunder, thee I visit now;

Noiseless the heavens, the while, and fair are

found.

Thine aspect is not fierce; yet towering brow
Of rock and wood-clad steep thy bosom bound;
Heaved in unwonted form lie islets round.

Loosed through this door upon the mighty lake, Once more we feel within Canadian ground

Rupertia's wilds farewell!-the leave we take Is link'd with thoughts which oft will blandly wake:

Much comfort have we had with brethren true,

Much with their flocks; nor can we cease to make,

Kind lords of traffic, mention meet of you. What debts, as guest, on service of my Lord, From thence to Gaspé's Gulph could I record!

IX.

A Birth-day Reflection.

Utpote commemorans scelerum commissa meorum

6

MEDIT. ST. BERNARD.

WHILE prosperous here on inland waters wide,
Far, far, but yet with homeward face I float,
Some friends whose hearts no distance can divide,
Ev'n now, perchance, my natal day may note:

6 Some of the Meditations of St. Bernard are interspersed with hexameter, or hexameter and pentameter lines, or occasionally with Leonine verses. They are, as I presume, quotations, but I do not profess to know from whence they are taken. The expression of sentiment in the line here quoted, may seem to some readers very strong; but if it was not too strong for St. Bernard, the Author does not feel it to be too strong for himself; nor, indeed, can it be considered stronger than the language of our confessions in the Liturgy, especially in the Communionoffice, which every devout Christian worshipper, viewing himself and his own doings as before GOD, sincerely and feelingly applies to his own case.

O! never or from them or me remote,

Bless them, my God; but should their partial

thought

Mislead this foolish heart, my antidote
Thyself shalt be, to judge it as I ought.

0 yes; I see myself a thing of nought,

View'd in those eyes which cannot sin endure; By sufferance spared, by blood of sprinkling bought, Sinning in youth, in holy things impure.

O years ill fill'd!—yet, to redeem the time,
Thy grace bestow, and bid me upward climb!

See Habak. i. 13. Heb. xii. 24. Ps. xxv. 7. Exod. xxviii. 38. Eph. v. 16.

X.

Sunday Morning on Lake Superior.

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me; for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day.

PSALM xlii. 4.

How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord. PSALM lxxxiv. 1, 2.

MEAGRE observance that we make, and lame,

With tasks inverted, of Jehovah's day!

We at whose hands our fellow-men should claim

The Sabbath's work, are mutes to them; and

they

Who else should rest,-(alas! to praise or pray,

Our help their different faith forbids to ask!)— Since this our long-drawn journey cannot stay,

Still ply, as through the week, their wonted task:

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