THE RлDE CODINUEL.

"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."

"God with us-Emmanuel!"

Sound the news through lowly dell:
Sound the news o'er mountain hoar,
Sound the news the wide world o'er :
Sound the news on every hand

In Christian and in pagan land,
And let it float upon the breeze

To islands in the distant seas;
Yea, tell it forth to rich and great,
And Lazarus at Dives' gate:
To earth's remotest nations tell,
"God with us- -Emmanuel!"

"God with us-Emmanuel!"

Rightly call the news "good-spell ";*
A good-spell if our fears are gone,

And God Himself our griefs hath borne:

A good-spell if we cast our care,

Ön One who counteth every hair:

A good-spell if in Him we trust,

When we are smitten to the dust:

A good-spell if our debts are paid,
And on the Lord our guilt is laid:

Of dark despair then rings the knell,

This name of names-Emmanuel!

Gospel, i.e. good-spell.

MATT. i. 23

THE SORG OF NATURE AND THE SONG

OF THE SHIRTS.*

"All Thy works shall praise Thee, O LORD; and Thy saints shall bless Thee."-PSALM cxlv. 10.

THE SONG OF NATURE AND THE SONG OF THE SAINTS.

REDEEMING THE TIME.

"See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." EPHES. V. 15-16.

A DECADE AND A SEPTERNATE.

DECEMBER THE

1861.

1871.

FOURTEENTH
1878.

"She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day."

A REMINISCENCE.

O quickly, Alice, time flits by it seems the other day

JER. XV. 9.

With loyal hearts and warm God-speed we sent thee on thy way,
Though heavy clouds above thy head across the prospect bright,
Cast shadows on thy bridal robe and mingled black with white.

Yet since the time of bitter grief that saw those clouds arise,
Which filled thy maiden heart with woe, and dulled thy radiant skies,
Seventeen full years have run their course with ever-varying scene,
A decade and a septennate hath joined what once hath been.

A decade and a septennate! strange periods these for thought:
For England and the world at large with solemn lessons fraught;
It was no mere coincidence these ten years and these seven,
But ordered for a purpose high by wise decree of Heaven.

How much of joy, how much alloy, how many hopes and fears
Have intertwined through all the web of those seventeen short years!
How many divers colours met in that much-tangled skein-
The roseate dyes of sweetest bliss and sable hues of pain!

THE AGE OF REASON.

E live in ages when God's truth is openly assailed,

And teaching that there is no God vociferously hailed;
And when a lack of holiness is met by length of tongue,

And want of conscience is made up by large excess of lung:

When those who claim to reason most cast reason's self away,
Denying truths that shine as shine the sunbeams at noonday;
Or seek to have the ancient creed transformed to some new shape,
Preferring to the Fall of Man the shrewder Rise of Ape!

Wonders of evolution they! evolving white from black:

Not wholly unlike apes themselves to see the sense they lack;

In reason too unreasoning, the truths revealed they spurn,

And whence they sprang, they may, perhaps, at length some day return.

And some who scorn the laws of God, despise the laws of man,
And, restless, seek to rule the world on some superior plan;
That all the lofty may come down, and all the base arise,
And each one do what seemeth best in his short-sighted eyes.

THE POWERS THAT BE.

OD'S word declare the "powers that be are all by Him ordained;
Therefore it is but right by them their place should be maintained;
Though who, alas! shall say how oft the trust is rightly used,
How often grossly misapplied, and grievously abused!