"The times of restitution of all things." Acts, iii. 21.
GIVE evil but an end—and all is clear!
Make it eternal-all things are obscured!
And all that we have thought, felt, wept, endured,
Worthless. We feel that ev'n if our own tear
Were wiped away for ever, no true cheer
Could to our yearning bosoms be secured
While we believed that sorrow clung uncured
To any being we on earth held dear.
Oh, much doth life the sweet solution want
Of all made blest in far futurity !
Heaven needs it too. Our bosoms yearn and pant
Rather indeed our God to justify
Than our own selves. Oh, why then drop the key That tunes discordant worlds to harmony?
"Speak good of his name." Psalm c. 4.
Oн no, great God! We feel Thou canst not be
Spectator or upholder of distress,
So long, indeed, as it is objectless.
No! it Thou look'st on sorrow, 'tis to see
Its benefit and end. If before Thee
One hopeless ill could spread the smallest shroud,
Oh, would'st Thou not dissolve it as a cloud
In the mere fervors of Thy radiancy?
'Tis so! And Thou Thy dearest Son didst send
That message of a boundless love to make;
Not as a mockery
If all were offered what but few could take!
Not as a thing of words but as a meed,
Which, like Thyself, is Truth and Love indeed.
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not witn him also freely give us all things?" Romans, viii. 32.
Он, not Thyself, great God, to satisfy
(Who in Thyself dost hold a full content),
Was Thy dear Son unto our being lent
To walk on earth, to suffer, and to die!
But 'twas to still the heart's own piercing cry
For Expiation. 'Twas divinely meant
To show which way Thy tender mercy went
When Thou createdst man the remedy
For a disease which did thy pity move,
None 'scaping it - for none are good but Thou!
Oh, 'twas the crowning act of Thy dear love,
Supreme assurance, sent us from above,
That Thou would'st save, and with all joy endow
Thy children, trembling in their human sense
With dim mysterious warnings of offence.
"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." St. John, i. 14,
AND SO Thou wert made man! A visible sign
That Thou for ever didst by man mean well.
Made man Thou wert; else how, Lord, could'st
Thou tell
How feels the human moulded from divine?
What wars of being call for aid benign,
And dear indulgence? What sad fears to quell,
Which make Thee Thee! Creator of a hell
Forged by our sinful selves when fears condign
Have blotted out Thy light. All this to know
By sad experience, Thou to man wert made;
And in this word - of man -the whole is said,
All pain, all want, all fear, all forms of woe.
In thought eternal these now rest with Thee,
Thou took'st them on Thyself— but man is free!
"We are chastened that we be not condemned." 1 Corinthians, il. 32.
YES, chastisement must be! -- only, instead
Of bitter vengeance, read corrective love.
Methinks this thought would more impress and
And realizing influence o'er us shed,
Than all fantastic terrors, bigot-bred.
Souls by the just and true alone improve;
And true it is, that ill acts from above
Draw down a retribution on the head;
But stripes of vengeful wrath no bettering bring.
Only, when smitten by a Father's hand,
We kiss the rod of heavenly chastening,
That blossoms into joy like Aaron's wand.
Oh, then 'twere wise weak mortals to protect
From threats too horrible to take effect.
"Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God." Romans, ii. 22.
SEVERITY indeed true kindness is,
Inspired by love and wisdom. Never we,
Like the wronged child of a false charity,
Shall, in the next world, blame the Judge of
Biting the hand which we pretend to kiss.
No; for we feel that we are beings free,
Not fettered by weak love, nor tyranny;
Nor can we say that God hath dealt amiss,
When sufferings reach us from the depths of sin.
Mortals we may suspect, who frown on us
For their own pleasure, or who mine within
Our sterner soul by flatteries dangerous.
But God, we know, hath not a selfish end.
Smiling, or frowning, still He must befriend.
"He shall send them a saviour." Isaiah, xix. 20.
SAVIOUR! There is a beauty in the name!
Who wants not saving from some ill of life?
Who has not felt the torture and the strife
Of guilt or sorrow bounding through the frame?
Who has not seen some cloud of fear or shame
Hang in his atmosphere, with threatenings rife ?
Or of keen Death the ready-whetted knife
Towards his heart trembling? - Then, in woes the
Men should be one in faith. O brotherhood
Of sorrow, wherefore darken by a ban
Of bigot cruelty, or cry for blood,
The word which should be sorrow's talisman?
Let me at least feel this, deep, deep within,
If from naught else, Thou, Saviour, sav'st from sin !
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