That church-the unperverted gospel's seat;

In their afflictions a divine retreat;
Source of their liveliest hope and tenderest prayer
The truth exploring with an equal mind,

In doctrine and communion they have sought
Firmly between the two extremes to steer;

But theirs the wise man's ordinary lot,To trace right courses for the stubborn blind, And prophesy to ears that will not hear.

EXILED REFORMERS.

SCATTERING, like birds escaped the fowler's net,
Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand
Most happy re-assembled in a land

By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget
Their country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,

Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines; their union is beset

With speculative notions rashly sown,

Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous weeds
Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds
That master them. How enviably blest

Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone
The peace of God within his single breast!

SPONSORS.

FATHER! to God Himself we cannot give

A holier name. Then lightly do not bear

Both names conjoined; but of thy spiritual care

Be duly mindful; still more sensitive

VOL. II.

13

Do thou, in truth a second mother, strive

Against disheartening custom; that by thee
Watched, and with love and pious industry
'Tended at need, the adopted plant may thrive
For everlasting bloom. Benign and pure

This ordinance, whether loss it would supply,
Prevent omission, help deficiency,

Or seek to make assurance doubly sure.
Shame if the consecrated vow be found,
An idle form, the word an empty sound!

NEW CHURCHES.

Bur liberty and triumphs on the main,
And laurelled armies not to be withstood,
What serve they? if, on transitory good

Intent, and sedulous of abject gain,
The state (oh! surely not preserved in vain!)

Forbear to shape due channels which the flood
Of sacred truth may enter-till it brood
O'er the wide realm, as o'er th' Egyptian plain,
The all-sustaining Nile. No more the time
Is conscious of her want; through England's bounds
In rival haste the wise for temples rise!

I hear their sabbath-bells' harmonious chime
Float on the breeze-the heavenliest of all sounds
That hill or vale prolongs or multiplies

THE NEW CHURCH-YARD.

THE encircling ground, in native turf arrayed,
Is now by solemn consecration given
To social interests, and to favouring heaven;
And where the rugged colts their gambols played,

And wild deer bounded through the forest glade,

Unchecked as when by merry outlaw driven,
Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even :
And soon, full soon, the lonely sexton's spade

Shall wound the tender sod. Encincture small,
But infinite in grasp of weal and woe!
Hopes, fears, in never-ending ebb and flow,—
The spousal trembling-and the "dust to dust"—
The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust,
That to the Almighty Father looks through all.

BERNARD BARTON,

A MEMBER of the Society of Friends, is the author of numerous pieces, marked alike by sweetness of versification, and tender and Christian feeling.

HUMAN LIFE.

"In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth."-Ps. xc. 6.

I WALKED the fields at morning's prime,
The grass was ripe for mowing;

The skylark sang his matin chime,
And all was brightly glowing.

"And thus," I cried, "the ardent boy,
His pulse with rapture beating,
Deems life's inheritance is joy-
The future proudly greeting."

I wandered forth at noon:-Alas!
On earth's maternal bosom

The scythe had left the withering grass,

And stretched the fading blossom.

And thus, I thought with many a sigh,
The hopes we fondly cherish,

Like flowers which blossom but to die,
Seem only born to perish.

Once more, at eve, abroad I strayed,
Through lonely hay-fields musing,
While every breeze that round me played,
Rich fragrance was diffusing.

The perfumed air, the hush of eve,
To purer hopes appealing,
O'er thoughts perchance too prone to grieve,
Scattered the balm of healing.

For thus "the actions of the just,"

When memory hath enshrined them,

E'en from the dark and silent dust
Their odour leave behind them.

SPIRITUAL WORSHIP.

THOUGH glorious, O God! must thy temple have been, On the day of its first dedication,

When the cherubims' wings widely waving were seen On high, o'er the ark's holy station;

When even the chosen of Levi, though skilled
To minister standing before Thee,

Retired from the cloud which the temple then filled,
And thy glory made Israel adore Thee;

Though awfully grand was thy majesty then;
Yet the worship thy Gospel discloses,
Less splendid in pomp to the vision of men,
Far surpasses the ritual of Moses.

And by whom was that ritual for ever repealed

But by Him, unto whom it was given

To enter the Oracle, where is revealed,

Not the cloud, but the brightness of heaven.

Who, having once entered, hath shown us the way,
O Lord! how to worship before Thee;

Not with shadowy forms of that earlier day,
But in spirit and truth to adore Thee!

This, this is the worship the Saviour made known,
When she of Samaria found him

By the patriarch's well sitting weary, alone,

With the stillness of noon-tide around Him.

How sublime, yet how simple, the homage He taught,
To her who inquired by that fountain,

If Jehovah at Solyma's shrine would be sought,
Or adored on Samaria's mountain.

"Woman! believe me, the hour is near,

When He, if ye rightly would hail Him, Will neither be worshipped exclusively here, Nor yet at the altar of Salem.

"For God is a spirit! and they who aright

Would perform the pure worship He loveth, In the heart's holy temple will seek, with delight, That spirit the Father approveth."

THE POOL OF BETHESDA.

AROUND Bethesda's healing wave

Waiting to hear the rustling wing

Which spoke the angel nigh, who gave
Its virtue to that holy spring,

With patience and with hope endued,
Were seen the gathered multitude.