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LORD'S DAYS.

Phin Daugham, 1695.

BRIGHT shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss ; Heaven once a week;

The next world's gladness prepossessed in this; A day to seek :

Eternity in time; the steps by which

We climb above all ages; lamps that light
Man through his heap of dark days; and the

rich

And full redemption of the whole week's flight;
The pulleys into headlong men; time's bower;
The narrow way:

Transplanted paradise; God's walking hour,
The cool o' th' day;

Angels descending; the return of trust;
A gleam of glory after six days' showers;
The church's love feasts; time's prerogative

And interest

Deducted from the whole: the combs, and hive, And home of rest;

The milky way chalk'd out with suns, a clue That guides through erring hours; and in full

story

A taste of heaven on earth; the pledge and cue Of a full feast, and the outcourts of glory.

THE BIBLE OUR ONLY TRUE GUIDE.

Montgomery.

WHAT is the world?—a wildering maze,
Where sin hath tracked ten thousand ways
Her victims to ensnare;

All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.

Millions of pilgrims throng those roads,
Bearing their baubles or their loads
Down to eternal night;

One only path, that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep ascends
From darkness into light.

Is there no Guide to show that path ?
The Bible!-he alone who hath

The Bible need not stray;

But he who hath, and will not give
That light of life to all that live,
Himself shall lose the way.

GRACE BEFORE SLEEP.

GIVER of sleep, unsleeping Lord,

Now am I to my chamber come,

Where Flesh and Heart each seek their home;

Thy nightly gift again I crave,

My wearied frame repose would have;

My heart, the promise of thy.word.

Just ready to depart, the Day
Spake to me in my garden walk,
Where oft the Day and I do talk,
And said, "O soul, both thou and I
Have lived beneath a Father's eye;
And now to him I go away."

Then soon the Night, immense with stars,
Whose gentle and immortal flame
Burns on in sanctity the same

As when thou first didst light their fires,
Came, saying, "O soul, are thy desires
Bound to the earth by sensual bars?"
Not unrebukable am I,

Not spotless thy command have kept;
Yet, Lord, my day's poor work accept,
For I have lived as in thy view;
Accept that wishful worship, too,
Wherewith I gave the Night reply.
Here now I am: the house is fast.
I am shut in from all but Thee;
Great witness of my privacy,
Dare I unshamed my soul undress,
And, like a child, ask thy caress,
The Ruler of a realm so vast?

Ask it I will: I cannot rest,
Unless thou grant some tender sign,
Assuring me that I am thine;
The mightiest king that father is
Loves well his little ones to kiss ;
And art not thou of Fathers best.

RELIGION THE UNFADING FLOWER.

Bishop Beber.

By cool Siloam's shady rill,

How sweet the lily grows!

How sweet the breath beneath the hill

Of Sharon's dewy rose!

Lo! such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod,
Whose heart with secret influence sweet

Is upward drawn to God.

By cool Siloam's shady rill
The lily must decay ;

The rose that blooms beneath the hill

Must shortly fade away.

And soon, too soon, the wintry hour

Of man's maturer age,

Will shake the soul with sorrow's power,
And stormy passion's rage.

Oh Thou, whose infant feet were found
Within thy Father's shrine,

Whose years, with changeless virtues crowned,
Were all alike Divine:

Dependent on thy bounteous breath,

We seek thy grace alone,

In childhood, manhood, age, and death,

To keep us all thine own.

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

WHITE-BUD! that in meek beauty so dost lean Thy cloistered cheek as pale as moonlit snow, Thou seem'st beneath thy huge, high leaf of green, An eremite beneath the mountain's brow.

White-bud! thou'rt emblem of a lovetide thing,—
The broken spirit that its anguish bears
To silent shades, and there sits offering
To heaven the holy fragrance of its tears.

PARADISE.

Ren. B. Bonar.

THROUGH these well guarded gates
No foe can entrance gain;

No sickness wastes, nor once intrudes,
The memory of pain.

The tossings of the night,

The frettings of the day,

All end, and like a cloud of dawn
Melt from thy skies away.

Foot-sore and worn thou art,

Breathless with toil and fight

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