A SOLDIER'S course, from battles won To new-commencing ftrife; A pilgrim's, reftless as the sun; Prepared the trumpet's call to greet, The hofts of Satan pant for spoil; Seek, soldier! pilgrim! seek thine home, The land whence pilgrims never roam, Where grief fhall never wound, nor death Disturb the Saviour's reign; Nor fin, with peftilential breath, His holy realm profane ; — Where founts of life their treasures yield In ftreams that never cease; Where everlasting mountains shield Vales of eternal peace: Where they who meet shall never part; Where grace achieves its plan ; And God, uniting every heart, Dwells face to face with man. Thomas Gisborne. 1803. LUTHER'S PRAYER. OUR UR God, our Father, with us stay, Flee from temptation, and to fight With thine own weapons for the right; So fhall we ever fing to Thee, Hallelujah! 1483-1501. CHRISTMAS. T came upon the midnight clear, I came glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth The world in solemn ftillness lay, Still through the cloven fkies they come, O'er all the weary world: Above its sad and lowly plains They bend on heavenly wing, And ever o'er its Babel sounds The bleffed angels fing. Yet with the woes of fin and ftrife And ye, beneath life's crushing load, For lo! the days are hastening on, Its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world send back the song Which now the angels fing. Rev. E. H. Sears. THE WORD. IN N the beginning was the Word: It gleamed with quick creative power, Thy Word, O God! is living yet, Amid earth's reftless ftrife, New harmony creating ftill, And ever higher life. And as that Word moves surely on, Streams farther out athwart the dark, O Word that broke the ftillness first, Till all Earth's darkness be made light, Till wail of woe and clank of chain And bruit of battle ftilled — The world with thy great mufic's pulse, O Word of Love! be thrilled; |