Or in the Ocean's everlasting roar,
Battling the old gray rocks, that sternly guard his shore ?

4. When in the stillness of the Sabbath morn,

The week's dread cares in tranquil slumber rest, When in the heart the holy thought is born,

And Heave high impulse warms the waiting breast, Have

ye not felt Him, when your voiceless prayer Swelled out in tones of praise, announcing God was there?

ye

5. Show us the Father! If fail to trace

His chariot, when the stars majestic roll, His pencil, ʼmid earth's loveliness and grace,

His presence, in the Sabbath of the soul, How can ye see Him, till the day of dread, When to the assembled worlds the Book of Doom is read ?

EXERCISE X.

The Thoughts of the Dumb.-J. H. Clixca.

From words we gain ideas;

there are some, Alas! whose only knowledge rests in words, Their wisdom empty wind. How different The shadowy thoughts which wander through such minds, From those ideal pictures, fresh and warm

5 And well defined, which crowd the mental sight Of the deaf mute! Words are unknown to him His thoughts are things — his logic and his chain of metaphysical deductions -- all Pass through his brain in bright depicted facts,

15

One, to whom Heaven, in wisdom infinite,
But to our sense inscrutable, had locked
The gates of Sound and Speech, was asked to tell
The meaning of " forgiveness.”

Pausing then
A moment, with the

eye

of memory “ To glance from Heaven to Earth, from Earth to Heaven," For fitting thoughts, he seized the ready pen

20 And wrote, – The odor which the trampled flower Gives out to bless the foot which crushes it !

EXERCISE XI.

Old Age and Death.-WALLER.

1. The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;

So calm are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

2. The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home!
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Three poets, in three distant ages born, '
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.

EXERCISE XII.

Death of Adam and Eve.--MONTGOMERY.

The sun in summer majesty on high,
Darted his fierce effulgence down the sky;
Yet dimmed and blunted were the dazzling rays,
His orb expanded through a dreary haze;
And, circled with a red portentous zone,

5
He looked in sickly horror from his throne;
The vital air was still; the torrid heat
Oppressed our hearts, that labored hard to beat.
When higher noon had shrunk the lessening shade,
Thence to his home our father we conveyed,

10 And stretched him, pillowed with his latest sheaves, On a fresh couch of green and fragrant leaves. Here, though his sufferings through the glen were known, We chose to watch his dying bed alone, Eve, Seth, and I. In vain he sighed for rest,

15 And oft his meek complainings, thus expressed: “Blow on me, wind! I faint with heat! O bring Delicious water from the deepest spring; Your sunless shadows o'er my limbs diffuse, Ye cedars ! wash me cold with midnight dews. Cheer me, my friends ! with looks of kindness cheer; Whisper a word of comfort in mine ear; Those sorrowing faces fill my soul with gloom ; This silence is the silence of the tomb. Thither I hasten; help me on my way;

25 O sing to soothe me, and to strengthen pray!” We sang to soothe him — hopeless was the song ; We prayed to strengthen him — he grew not strong. In vain from every herb, and fruit, and flower, Of cordial sweetness or of healing power,

30

20 35

We pressed the virtue; no terrestrial balm
Nature's dissolving agony could calm.
Thus, as the day declined, the fell disease
Eclipsed the light of life by slow degrees;
Yet while his pangs grew sharper, more resigned,
More self-collected grew the sufferer's mind;
Patient of heart, though racked at every pore,
The righteous penalty of sin he bore;
Not his the fortitude that mocks at pains,
But that which feels them most, and yet sustains.
“ 'Tis just, 't is merciful,” we heard him say;
6 Yet wherefore hath he turned his face away?
I see him not; I hear him not; I call;
My God! my God! support me, or I fall.”

40

a

The sun went down, amidst an angry glare

45 Of flushing clouds, that crimsoned all the air; The winds brake loose; the forest boughs were torn, And dark aloof the eddying foliage borne; Cattle to shelter scudded in affright; The florid evening vanished into night:

50 Then burst the hurricane upon the vale, In peals of thunder, and thick-vollied hail; Prone rushing rains with torrents whelm’d the land, Our cot amidst a river seemed to stand ; Around its base, the foamy-crested streams

55 Flashed through the darkness to the lightning's gleams ; With monstrous throes an earthquake heaved the ground; The rocks were rent, the mountains trembled round; Never since nature into being came, Had such mysterious motion shook her frame;

60 We thought, ingulpht in floods, or wrapt in fire, The world itself would perish with our sire. Amidst this war of elements within More dreadful grew the sacrifice for sin,

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Whose victim on his bed of torture lay,
Breathing the slow remains of life away.
Erewhile, victorious faith sublimer rose
Beneath the pressure of collected woes:
But now his spirit wavered, went and came,
Like the loose vapor of departing flame,
Till at the point, when comfort seemed to die
For ever in his fixed unclosing eye,
Bright through the smouldering ashes of the man,
The saint broke forth, and Adam thus began:

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:

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85

“O ye that shudder at this awful strife,
This wrestling agony of death and life,
Think not that He, on whom my soul is cast,
Will leave me thus forsaken to the last;
Nature's infirmity alone you see;
My chains are breaking, I shall soon be free;
Though firm in God the spirit holds her trust,
The flesh is frail, and trembles into dust.
Horror and anguish seize me; — 't is the hour
Of darkness, and I mourn beneath its power;
The Tempter plies me with his direst art,
I feel the Serpent coiling round my heart;
He stirs the wound he once inflicted there,
Instils the deadening poison of despair,
Belies the truth of God's delaying grace,
And bids me curse my Maker to his face.
I will not curse Him, though his grace delay;
I will not cease to trust Him, though he slay;
Full on his promised mercy I rely,
For God hath spoken, — God, who cannot lie.
Thou of my faith the Author and the End !
Mine early, late, and everlasting friend !
The joy, that once thy presence gave, restore
Ere I am summoned hence, and seen no more:

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