Our weak, wild bursts of gratitude-
Thy calm, clear deeps of grace!

O never shall Thy mercy make
Our souls to rest in Thine?
Nor mortal gratitude partake

The flow of Grace Divine?

When shall our grateful raptures rise
Fast as Thy grace descends,

And link to endless harmonies

The Love that never ends!

T. H. GILL.

THE SOUL'S RELIANCE.

INTERVAL of grateful shade,
Welcome to my weary head!
Welcome slumbers to my eyes,
Tired with glaring vanities!
My great Master still allows
Needful periods of Repose:
By my Heavenly Father blest
Thus I give my powers to rest.

Heavenly Father! gracious name!
Night and Day His love the same:
Far be each suspicious thought,
Every anxious care forgot:

Thou, my ever bounteous God,
Crown'st my days with various good:
Thy kind eye, that cannot sleep,
These defenceless hours shall keep.

What if death my sleep invade?
Should I be of death afraid?
Whilst encircled by Thy arm,
Death may strike but cannot harm.
With Thy heavenly presence blest,
Death is life, and labor rest.
Welcome sleep or death to me,
Still secure, if still with Thee.

PHILIP DODDRIDGE. — 1702-1751.

UPWARD TENDENCIES OF THE SOUL.

FROM the birth

Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,

Not in the fading echoes of Renown,

Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap, The soul should find enjoyment: but from these Turning disdainful to an equal good,

Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view, Till every bound at length should disappear,

And infinite perfection close the scene.

AKENSIDE.-1721-1770.

THE RAINBOW.

SWEET Dove! the softest steadiest plume In all the sunbright sky,

Brightening in every changing gloom,

As breezes change on high ;

Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth

66

Long sought and lately won,"

Blest increase of reviving Earth

When first it felt the sun;

Sweet Rainbow! pride of summer days,

High set at Heaven's command, Though into drear and dusky haze Thou melt on either hand;

Dear tokens of a pardoning God,
We hail you, one and all,

As when our fathers walked abroad,

Freed from their twelve-months' thrall!

Lord! if our fathers turned to Thee

With such adoring gaze,

Wondering frail men Thy light should see Without Thy scorching blaze;

Where is our love and where our hearts
We who have seen Thy Son,

Have tried Thy Spirit's winning arts,
And yet we are not won?

The Son of God in radiance beamed
Too bright for us to scan;

But we may face the rays that streamed
From the mild Son of Man.

There, parted into rainbow hues
In sweet harmonious strife,
We see celestial Love diffuse
Its light o'er Jesus' life.

God by His bow vouchsafed to write

This truth in heaven above:

As every lovely hue is Light,
So every grace is Love.

KEBLE.

WISDOM AND LOVE.

GOD is love: His mercy brightens
All the path in which we rove:
Bliss He wakes, and woe He lightens ;
God is wisdom, God is love.

Chance and change are busy ever;

Man decays, and ages move; But His mercy waneth never,

God is wisdom, God is love.

Even the hour that darkest seemeth

Will his changeless goodness prove;
From the mist His brightness streameth,
God is wisdom, God is love.

He with earthly cares entwineth
Hope and comfort from above ·
Everywhere His glory shineth;
God is wisdom, God is love.

BOWRING.

TO NIGHT.

MYSTERIOUS night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,

This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And, lo! creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O sun? or who could find,

Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife? If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

J. BLANCO WHITE.