"Marvel not that I said, Ye must be born again." St. John, iii. 7.
BORN out of God, with pain and bitter tears,
Back unto God we must be born again,
Also with struggle and reluctant pain!
Our mortal days are types of greater years;
And all that to our body's eye appears
In this great universe of loss and gain
Shadows our inner life, and is a chain
That ever linketh us by hopes and fears
By Terror and by Trust-by Life and Death -
grandeur. All this world is but a womb
Unto another. As we draw our breath,
as infants do when first they come
Into this orb. So strive we in our thirst
To drink Heaven's air, which pains us at the first.
His banner over me was love." Cant. ii. 4.
HE who loves best knows most.
my tired thoughts so far, so restless run,
of knowledge underneath the sun,
Or round about the wide-encircling sky!
Nor earth nor heaven is read by scrutiny!
But touch me with a Saviour's love divine,
I pierce at once to wisdom's inner shrine,
And my soul seeth all things like an eye.
Then have I treasures, which to fence and heed
Makes weakness bold and folly wisdom-strung,
As doves are valorous to guard their young,
And larks are wary from their nests to lead.
Is there a riddle, and resolved you need it?
Love
and you are sure to read it!
"Perfect love casteth out fear." 1 John, iv. 18.
SEEST thou with dread creation's mystery?
Dost thou life's drear enigma beat in vain?
Hast thou a cloud upon thy heart and brain?
Love
only love - and all resolved shall be
Art thou a fool in this world's subtlety?
Must thou thy fond belief still rue with pain
In all thy fancy deemed was joy and gain?
Love only love and wisdom comes to thee?
But, mind, thy love must be a heavenly fire:
For flames, from any earthly shrine ascending,
Kindled in vanity, in woe expire,
And leave experience o'er but ashes bending.
Then, too, the fear of God's avenging rod
Can only be escaped by loving God!
"I will purely purge away thy dross." Isaiah, i. 25.
OUR Sin; from fire a dreadful emblem make
Of punishment, and woes that never tire:—
And ye how friendly - beautiful is fire!
Truth, Iressed in fable, tells us it did wake
Man fro.n brute sleep, Heaven's bounty to partake,
And arts, and love, and rapture of the lyre.
The cottage hearth, the taper's friendly spire,
Have images to soften hearts that ache.
Virtuous is fire. The stars give thoughts of love,
And the sun cheseth ill desires away.
Fire cleanses too; by it we gold do prove,
And precious silver hath its bright assay.
Why then not deem the Bible's fires mean this-
Evil all melte, to make way for bliss!
"What is truth?" St. John, xviii. 38.
pine for truth! for something more
Than husks of learning! How did ancient Greece
Hang on the virtuous lips of Socrates,
Turning from words more sounding to adore
The wisdom that sent souls to their own store
For knowledge. So let us our hearts release!
'Tis time the jargon of the schools should cease
Errors that rot Theology's deep core,
Lying at the base of things. Down, down must fall
The glittering edifice, cemented much
With blood, yet baseless. At Truth's simple touch
All the vain fabric will be shattered — all !
But not the Bible! Nature there is stored,
And God! Eternal is the Saviour's Word!
"Lord, to whom shall we go?" St. John, vi. 08.
To whom, or whither, should we go from Thee,
O Christ? Beyond ourselves, beyond all law
Of hope, and being; beyond love and awe;
Beyond creation to some shoreless sea,
To one huge blot of dreary vacancy?
I look around, above, below; I draw
On stores that sensual vision never saw
I ransack piles of old philosophy!
Nothing I find, except the self-same thing,
One deep expression of tremendous want,
Nothing that even pretends to seal the grant
That to the heart's great void shall fulness bring!
Then, Saviour, I sink back before Thy knee,
And all things find in Thee, and only Thee!
"All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto
him." Ezekiel, xviii. 22.
O WATERS of Oblivion, Fable fair
When back across the Past with throbbing brain
In thought we journey, thou dost mock our pain,
Like the false fountains on a desert's glare!
Our fancy grasps thee, though thou be but air,
And bitter the heart's cry,
Oh then, if Heaven should whisper, "Seek again! And thou may'st yet to real brooks repair; Stretch thy faint limbs, and wander or repose By the green pasture and the cooling stream, Dissolving quite the memory of thy woes In present ecstasy." The hope and dream Of such delight might make the desert bloom! What then, if it be true, this side the tomb ?
"The sting of death is sin." 1 Corinthians, xv. 56.
Он, Death will be so beautiful!" one said
To me; a child he was by sickness worn;-
I looked at him. His face was like the morn
When from its beauty the dull vapors glide!
The dusky curtains that the next world hide
Seemed for a moment's space asunder torn!
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