The Christian Year Part 28

Yet deem not, on such parting sad Shall dawn no welcome dear and glad: Divided in their earthly race, Together at the glorious goal, Each leading many a rescued soul, The faithful champions shall embrace.

For e'en as those mysterious Four, Who the bright whirling wheels upbore By Chebar in the fiery blast.

So, on their tasks of love and praise This saints of G.o.d their several ways Right onward speed, yet join at last.

And sometimes e'en beneath the moon The Saviour gives a gracious boon, When reconciled Christians meet, And face to face, and heart to heart, High thoughts of holy love impart In silence meek, or converse sweet.

Companion of the Saints! 'twas thine To taste that drop of peace divine, When the great soldier of thy Lord Called thee to take his last farewell, Teaching the Church with joy to tell The story of your love restored.

O then the glory and the bliss, When all that pained or seemed amiss Shall melt with earth and sin away!

When saints beneath their Saviour's eye, Filled with each other's company, Shall spend in love th' eternal day!

St. Philip and St. James.

Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich in that he is made low. _St. James_ i. 9. 10.

DEAR is the morning gale of spring, And dear th' autumnal eve; But few delights can summer bring A Poet's crown to weave.

Her bowers are mute, her fountains dry, And ever Fancy's wing Speed's from beneath her cloudless sky To autumn or to spring.

Sweet is the infant's waking smile, And sweet the old man's rest- But middle age by no fond wile, No soothing calm is blest.

Still in the world's hot restless gleam She plies her weary task, While vainly for some pleasant dream Her wandering glances ask.-

O shame upon thee, listless heart, So sad a sigh to heave, As if thy SAVIOUR had no part In thoughts, that make thee grieve.

As if along His lonesome way He had not borne for thee Sad languors through the summer day, Storms on the wintry sea.

Youth's lightning flash of joy secure Pa.s.sed seldom o'er His spright,- A well of serious thought and pure.

Too deep for earthly light.

No spring was His-no fairy gleam- For He by trial knew How cold and bare what mortals dream, To worlds where all is true.

Then grudge not thou the anguish keen Which makes thee like thy LORD, And learn to quit with eye serene Thy youth's ideal h.o.a.rd.

Thy treasured hopes and raptures high- Unmurmuring let them go, Nor grieve the bliss should quickly fly Which CHRIST disdained to know.

Thou shalt have joy in sadness soon; The pure, calm hope be thine, Which brightens, like the eastern moon, As day's wild lights decline.

Thus souls, by nature pitched too high, By sufferings plunged too low, Meet in the Church's middle sky, Half way 'twixt joy and woe,

To practise there the soothing lay That sorrow best relieves; Thankful for all G.o.d takes away, Humbled by all He gla.s.s.

St. Barnabas.

The sea of consolation, a Levite. _Acts_ iv. 36.

THE world's a room of sickness, where each heart Knows its own anguish and unrest; The truest wisdom there, and n.o.blest art, Is his, who skills of comfort best; Whom by the softest step and gentlest tone Enfeebled spirits own, And love to raise the languid eye, When, like an angel's wing, they feel him fleeting by:-

_Feel_ only-for in silence gently gliding Fain would he shun both ear and sight, 'Twixt Prayer and watchful Love his heart dividing, A nursing-father day and night.

Such were the tender arms, where cradled lay, In her sweet natal day, The Church of JESUS; such the love He to His chosen taught for His dear widowed Dove.

Warmed underneath the Comforter's safe wing They spread th' endearing warmth around: Mourners, speed here your broken hearts to bring, Here healing dews and balms abound: Here are soft hands that cannot bless in vain, By trial taught your pain: Here loving hearts, that daily know The heavenly consolations they on you bestow.

Sweet thoughts are theirs, that breathe serenest calms, Of holy offerings timely paid, Of fire from heaven to bless their votive alms And pa.s.sions on G.o.d'S altar laid.

The world to them is closed, and now they shine With rays of love divine, Through darkest nooks of this dull earth Pouring, in showery times, their glow of "quiet mirth."

New hearts before their Saviour's feet to lay, This is their first, their dearest joy: Their next from heart to heart to clear the way For mutual love without alloy: Never so blest as when in JESUS' roll They write some hero-soul, More pleased upon his brightening road To wait, than if their own with all his radiance glowed.

O happy spirits, marked by G.o.d and man Their messages of love to bear, What though long since in Heaven your brows began, The genial amarant wreath to wear, And in th' eternal leisure of calm love Ye banquet there above; Yet in your sympathetic heart We and our earthly griefs may ask and hope a part.

Comfort's true sons! amid the thoughts of down That strew your pillow of repose, Sure 'tis one joy to muse, how ye unknown By sweet remembrance soothe our woes; And how the spark ye lit, of heavenly cheer, Lives in our embers here, Where'er the cross is borne with smiles, Or lightened secretly by Love's endearing wiles:

Where'er one Levite in the temple keeps The watch-fire of his midnight prayer, Or issuing thence, the eyes of mourners steeps In heavenly balm, fresh gathered there; Thus saints, that seem to die in earth's rude strife, Only win double life: They have but left our weary ways To live in memory here, in Heaven by love and praise.

St. John Baptist's Day.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers. _Malachi_ iv. 5, 6.

TWICE in her season of decay The fallen Church hath felt Elijah's eye Dart from the wild its piercing ray: Not keener burns, in the chill morning sky, The herald star, Whose torch afar Shadows and boding night-birds fly.

Methinks we need him once again, That favoured seer-but where shall he be found?

By Cherith's side we seek in vain, In vain on Carmel's green and lonely mound: Angels no more From Sinai soar, On his celestial errands bound.

But wafted to her glorious place By harmless fire, among the ethereal thrones, His spirit with a dear embrace Thee the loved harbinger of Jesus owns, Well-pleased to view Her likeness true, And trace, in thine, her own deep tones.

Deathless himself, he joys with thee To commune how a faithful martyr dies, And in the blest could envy be, He would behold thy wounds with envious eyes, Star of our morn, Who yet unborn Didst guide our hope, where Christ should rise.

Now resting from your jealous care For sinners, such as Eden cannot know, Ye pour for us your mingled prayer, No anxious fear to damp Affection's glow, Love draws a cloud From you to shroud Rebellion's mystery here below.

And since we see, and not afar, The twilight of the great and dreadful day, Why linger, till Elijah's car Stoop from the clouds? Why sheep ye? Rise and pray, Ye heralds sealed In camp or field Your Saviour's banner to display.

Where is the lore the Baptist taught, The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue?

The much-enduring wisdom, sought By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among?

Who counts it gain His light should wane, So the whole world to Jesus throng?

Thou Spirit, who the Church didst lend Her eagle wings, to shelter in the wild, We pray Thee, ere the Judge descend, With flames like these, all bright and undefiled, Her watch-fires light, To guide aright Our weary souls by earth beguiled.

So glorious let thy Pastors shine, That by their speaking lives the world may learn First filial duty, then divine, That sons to parents, all to Thee may turn; And ready prove In fires of love, At sight of Thee, for aye to burn.