Light flashes in the gloomiest sky, Over her flat and leafless reign, And chanting in so blithe a tone, Brighter than rainbow in the north, To think, where'er he looks, such gleam may have a part; May dwell, unseen by all but Heaven, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. St. Luke vii. 6. "From the first time that the impressions of religion settled deeply in his mind, he used great caution to conceal it; not only in obedience to the rule given by our Saviour, of fasting, praying, and giving alms in secret, but from a particular distrust he had of him Lest the deep stain it owns within Break out, and Faith be sham'd by the believer's sin. In silence and afar they wait, To find a prayer their Lord may hear: Voice of the poor and desolate, You best may bring it to his ear. Your grateful intercessions rise With more than royal pomp, and pierce the skies. Happy the soul, whose precious cause You in the sovereign Presence plead "This is the lover of thy laws *, "The friend of thine in fear and need” For to the poor thy mercy lends That solemn style, " thy nation and thy friends." He too is blest, whose outward eye The graceful lines of art may trace, self: for he said he was afraid he should at some time or other do some enormous thing, which, if he were looked on as a very religious man, might cast a reproach on the profession of it, and give great advantages to impious men to blaspheme the name of God." Burnel's Life of Hule, in Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog. vi. 73. He loveth our nation. St. Luke vii, 5. While his free spirit, soaring high, Discerns the glorious from the base; Till out of dust his magic raise z A home for prayer and love, and full harmonious praise, Where far away and high above, In maze on maze the tranced sight What though in poor and humble guise Thou here didst sojourn, cottage-born ? Yet from thy glory in the skies Our earthly gold Thou dost not scorn. For Love delights to bring her best, And where Love is, that offering evermore is blest. Love on the Saviour's dying head Her spikenard drops unblam'd may pour, He hath built us a synagogue. May mount his cross, and wrap him dead In spices from the golden shorea; Risen, may embalm his sacred name With all a Painter's art, and all a Minstrel's flame. Worthless and lost our offerings seem, Drops in the ocean of his praise; But Mercy with her genial beam Is ripening them to pearly blaze, To sparkle in His crown above, Who welcomes here a child's as there an angel's love. a St. John xii. 7. xix. 30. FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY. When they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts. St. Matthew viii. 34. THEY know th' Almighty's power, Who, waken'd by the rushing midnight shower, To howl and chafe amid the bending trees, To bathe the landscape in a fiery stream, Touching the tremulous eye with sense of light Too rapid and too pure for all but angel sight. They know th' Almighty's love, Who, when the whirlwinds rock the topmost grove, Stand in the shade, and hear The tumult with a deep exulting fear, How, in their fiercest sway, Curb'd by some power unseen, they die away, |