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Full soon awake, with cheering light,
Thy pard'ning mercies on my sight;
And the REDEEMER'S name bestows
A "double" peace for all my woes.
When mov'd by sin, or cold neglect,
Thy stern rebukes my soul correct;
And, sore dismay'd, afflicted, tost,
I mourn thy secret presence lost:
Thou mark'st-thou"bow'st thy heav'ns
most high,"

And in “the darkness of the sky"
Reveal'st thy awful soothing voice,
And bid'st my sinking heart rejoice.

When deep affliction deals the blow,
And dries each source of bliss below;
No parent left, no offspring nigh,
To cheer or to partake the sigh;
Not long I mourn-the FRIEND above
Soon shows a more than parent's love;
Dispels the momentary night-

He speaks the word, and "there is light."

When fever'd pain or anguish'd smart
In vain explores each healing art;
By night invokes the dawn, and then
Still restless woos the night again :
Yet on that dark, that ling'ring hour
Oft beams the Star of saving pow'r;
And soon, thy deep intentions clear,
Health, youth, and gladness re-appear.

But when that stroke is nearer felt
For man's revolt by Justice dealt;
When, hanging on the faded cheek,
Chill dews the night of death bespeak:
O! then thou bidst to faith arise
A purer Sun in brighter skies;
Life springs immortal from the tomb,
And morning wakes in endless bloom.
C. J. H.

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And oh! at glimpse of early morn, When holy monks their beads are telling,

'Tis sweet to hear the hunter's horn From glen to mountain wildly swelling, And it is sweet, at mid-day hour,

Beneath the forest oak reclining, To hear the driving tempest pour,

Each sense to fairy dreams resigning. 'Tis sweet, where nodding rocks around The nightshade dark is wildly wreathing,

To listen to some solemn sound

From harp or lyre divinely breathing. And sweeter yet the genuine glow Of youthful Friendship's high devotion,

Responsive to the voice of wo,

When heaves the heart with strong
emotion.

And Youth is sweet with many a joy,
That frolick by in artless measure;
And Age is sweet, with less alloy,

In tranquil thought and silent pleasure. For He who gave the life we share,

With every charm His gift adorning, Bade Eve her pearly dew-drops wear, And drest in smiles the blush of Morning.

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PSALM XXIV. PARAPHRASE. JEHOVAH's throne is fixed above, And bright through all the courts of love His Cherub Choirs appear: Ah! how shall man ascend so high, A feeble race, condemn'd to die, The heirs of guilt and fear!

Shall towering strength, or eagle flight,
Essay to win the sacred height

By Saint and Seraph trod?
That living light, that holiest air,
The guileless heart alone shall share,
The pure behold their GOD.

Yet think not that with fruitless pain,
One tear shall drop, one sigh in vain

Repentant swell thy breast;
See, see the great REDEEMER come
To bear his exiled children home,

Triumphant to their rest.

E'en now from Earth's remotest end Ten thousand thousand voices blend

To bless the SAVIOUR'S power.
Within thy temple, LORD, we stand,
With willing heart, a pilgrim band,

And wait the promis'd hour.
Then high your golden portals raise,
Ye everlasting gates of praise;

Ye heavens, the triumph share : MESSIAH Comes, with all his train; He comes to claim his purchas'd reign, And rest for ever there!

PSALM XLII. PARAPHRASE.

PART I.

As panting in the sultry beam
The hart desires the cooling stream,
So to thy presence, LORD, I flee,
So longs my soul, O God! for thee,
Athirst to taste thy living grace,
And see thy glory face to face.

But rising griefs distress my soul,
And tears on tears successive roll:
For many an evil voice is near

To chide my wo, and mock my fear,
And silent memory weeps alone,
O'er hours of peace and gladness flown.

For I have walk'd the happy round,
That circles Sion's holy ground,
And gladly swell'd the choral lays
That hymn'd my great REDEEMER'S
praise,

What time the hallow'd arch along
Responsive swell'd the solemn song.

Ah! why, by passing clouds oppress'd, Should vexing thoughts distract thy breast?

Turn, turn to Him, in every pain, Whom never suppliant sought in vain; Thy strength, in joy's extatic day; Thy hope, when joy has pass'd away.

PART II.

O GOD! my heart within me faints, And pours in sighs her deep complaints; Yet many a thought shall linger still By Carmel's height and Tabor's rill, The Olive Mount my SAVIOUR trod, The rocks that saw and own'd their GOD.

The morning beam that wakes the
skies,

Shall see my matin incense rise;
The evening Seraphs, as they rove,
Shall catch the notes of joy and love,
And sullen night, with drowsy ear,
The still repeated anthem hear.

My soul shall cry to thee, O Lord, To thee, supreme, incarnate WORD, My Rock and Fortress, Shield and Friend,

Creator, Saviour, Source, and End; And thou wilt hear thy servant's prayer, Tho' death and darkness speak despair.

Ah! why, by passing clouds oppress'd, Should vexing thoughts distract thy breast?

Turn, turn to Him, in every pain, Whom never suppliant sought in vain ; Thy strength, in joy's extatic day, Thy hope, when joy has pass'd away.

PSALM CXXIII. PARAPHRASE.

LORD, before thy throne we bend,
LORD, to thee our eyes ascend;
Servants, to our Master true,
Lo, we yield the homage due;
Children, to our Sire we fly,
Abba, Father, hear our cry!

To the dust our knees we bow;
We are weak, but mighty Thou;
Sore distress'd, yet suppliant still
We await thy holy will:

Bound to earth, and rooted here,
Till our SAVIOUR GOD appear.

From the Heavens, thy dwelling place, Shed, O shed, thy pardoning grace,

Turn to save us :-none below
Pause to hear our silent wo;
Pleased, or sad, a thoughtless throng,
Still they gaze and pass along.

Leave us not beneath the power
Of temptation's darkest hour;
Swift to seal their captive's doom
See our foes exulting come:
JESUS, SAVIOUR, yet be nigh,
Lord of Life and Victory!

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

A popular Survey of the Reformation and fundamental Doctrines of the Church of England. By GEORGE CUSTANCE, Author of A concise View of the Constitution of England. Longman and Co. 8vo. pp. 571. Price 12s.

EVERY work connected with the "reformation" of religion, at home or abroad, derives, from its mere subject, considerable impo tance in our eyes. However indifferently executed, it at least directs the mind to a topic on which it can scarcely employ itself without advantage. It introduces us into a mine of incalculable riches, however ill calculated it may be to become our guide through all the depths and windings of it. If, therefore, the work of Mr. Custance had not, from its execution, any title to our respect and attention, still its subject would at least be a strong inducement to examine and to report upon it. We should, at the worst, give him the degree of credit which belongs to every author who turns aside from the frivolities of literature to its more solid and productive occupations-from its parterre of useless flowers, to its fields and storehouses of wealth and profit. But the fact is, that Mr. Custance has considerable intrinsic claims upon our attention. In the first place, the spirit in which he writes is excellent. He views this important subject with the depth and liveliness of feeling which belong to it. Whereas many modern writers, who have either professedly written on the subject, or whose history embraces this interesting period, have been able to take their survey of it with all the coldness of those who had neither part nor lot in the matter. Mr. Custance is alive to

its importance-treats of it as, perhaps with the exception of one, the grandest revolution which has ever taken place in the circumstances of man-as that mortal force which is gradually, under a higher influence, regenerating the state of the world-as, in the language of the schools, that plastic soul which is silently moulding and quickening the dead mass of Popery and superstition into form and life. But it may be as well to let the author speak for himself, as to his design in the composition of this work; only assuring our readers, that he has completely redeemed the pledge given in this extract to the public.

"Notwithstanding the great variety of publications, in almost every department of knowledge, there still appears to be wanting a View of the Reformation and Doctrines of the Established Church, so compressed as to be suited to young persons and others, who have neither opportunity nor leisure for reading very elaborate works.

"A great book has always been considered so great an evil, that comparatively very few have had the courage

to encounter the folios of Bishop Burnett; and even the Abridgment of his History of the Reformation is so prolix, and contains so many exceptionable passages, as to render it very unfit for juvenile reading.

"The present work having been written with a direct reference to the information of youth, on a very important part of our ecclesiastical history, the anxious parent may safely put it into the hands of his children of both sexes; as the author has carefully avoided the least allusion to any of those disgusting cir

cumstances that were connected with the first stage of the Reformation. He has, however, endeavoured to select as many of the most interesting facts as may give the reader a general idea of the rise, progress, and final settlement of our present Protestant establishment.

"It happens, as it always will, that many of those who hold communion with the religion of the state, are totally ignorant both of the nature and princi

ples of the church to which they feel a sort of hereditary attachment; but can assign no better reason for belonging to it, than its being the religion which their fathers professed. The author has, therefore, taken a brief view of the lawfulness, expediency, doctrines, spirit, and utility of the Established Church,

for the instruction of those who cannot

consult more learned treatises on these. different subjects. In doing which he has steered as widely as possible of controversy, and flatters himself that he has uniformly given his own opinions with a just regard to the right of private judg

ment in others.

"He begs to assure the reader, that he has stated no facts but what rest on the authority of Burnett, Hume, Milner, Gisborne, or other writers of equal credit." pp. 3-5.

To this account, given by Mr. C. of his own work, we think it right to add, that it is written in a plain and unambitious style-that a calm and moderate spirit pervades its pages-that the work is not rendered unfit for the age for which it is chiefly designed by any perplexing or remote disquisitions and that it is calculated, as it ought, to leave on the mind a very favourable impression of the authors of the Reformation, and of the church built by their labours and cemented by their blood in our own country. Indeed, by carefully ascertaining and developing the real spirit and doctrines of our Establishment, and by displaying the catholic temper, the mild wisdom, the calm energy, and the spirit of cautious discrimination by which its first fathers and, the authors of its formularies were animated, it is likely to prepossess the young mind with the deepest veneration for it. If the Establishment be, as we unfeignedly think it is, worth retaining, it is desirable that it should be exhibited not merely through the cold and distorting medium of modern divinity, but surrounded by the glory of its earlier years. In comparing it, at the present moment, with other religious institutions, men are apt to make the comparison between these

institutions in their infant state, or administered by a few simple, zealous men, and the Establishment in her maturer years, and as become the religion of the multitude, and soiled by all the accessions and deposits of time, and circumstance, and human interest, and corruption. Now this comparison is obviously unfair. The rule may not be true, in its full extent, that "whatever is best administered is best;"--because some systems may be so radically corrupt, that good administration may merely call into action the most mischievous energies-energies which were harmless only while inactive. It may merely rouse the sleeping lion. But this is certainly true, that the careful administration of a very imperfect system of manners and morals, by a few hands peculiarly interested in its preservation and integrity, may invest it with an undue preeminence over a nobler and purer system. A small congregation of separatists may be purer, for instance, than a whole community of churchmen, and yet the system of the latter be, on the whole, preferable for the support of national morals and the extension of national religion. The little pond in a man's own garden is usually kept neater in its banks, and clearer from weeds, than the mighty river which rolls through the adjoining meadows. And then also, as to the influence of time upon institutions : "Time (says Lord Bacon) is the greatest of all innovators." certain it is, that the best human system, unless carefully inspected, and diligently cleansed, gradually throws out many warts and excrescencies on its surface. Whoever, therefore, compares any thing that is new with any thing that is old, is tempted, upon a hasty survey, to prefer the former. But the more accurate examiner will often discover, that the splendour of the first is a mere Birmingham polish, and the dulness of the last the mere dust of neglect, veiling the

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most intrinsic riches, and removable by the slightest care. It is on grounds such as these, and we have rather hinted at the subject than examined it, that we conceive it to be highly important to carry the young backwards in their examination of the religious system of our country-to lead them to the source, instead of fixing them on the wide and somewhat neglected banks of the descending stream. And such is the tendency of this production of Mr. Custance. The great work of Bishop Burnett, whose name and whose labours will always be precious to the lovers of candour, independence, and truth, is too bulky for the busy, the indolent, and the young. Not, indeed, that we would fall into the modern error, of substituting abridgments for original and more copious works; because we believe that both our habits of labour and our progress in truth are endangered by the exchange. But many will have to do with nothing but essences. They will read nothing, if they do not read abridgments. And such persons will read with pleasure and benefit the work before us. We have certainly risen from it more grateful to Providence for the Reformation in general; and for that church in particular, which the Reformers have, as it were, hewn out of our native rocks, and have established on pillars, we trust, never to be shaken, amidst the mountains and valleys of our beloved country. We seem to ourselves to discover some flaws in the spirit and genius of the Reformers, and of the Reformation. We discover also some defects in that particular church which they have planted among ourselves. But, on the whole, we are disposed rather to admire than to complain; rather to thank the great Author of our blessings for what we have, than to allow ourselves in a restless, querulous, and ungrateful pursuit of unattainable good.

We shall now give our readers a single extract, taken at random, from the work of Mr. Custance; but sufficient, although but a part of his argument on the subject, to afford a specimen of his general style and temper. He asks,

"What are the temporal advantages for which we are indebted to the establish

ment of the Christian religion?”

From his reply to this question we select two particulars.

Whilst

"Civil liberty is, doubtless, one, which Englishmen enjoy above all other nations, and which they have derived from their national religion. Popery enslaved the minds, it fettered also the bodies of men; and no one who is competent to take an enlarged survey of the subject, can deny that civil liberty has gradually increased in proportion as pure Protestant Christianity has been diffused. Previously to the Reformation, the royal prerogative was a principle so vague and undefined as to be a most dangerous weapon in the hands of a violent and capricious monarch; whilst the liberties of the subject were so circumscribed and obscurely ascertained, as to produce, during the reigns of many of our sovereigns, a collision between the prince and the people, which at length brought upon the nation the horrors of a civil war. But as the Scriptures became more generally understood, the unreasonable pretensions of rulers were discovered, and the natural rights of subjects more clearly perceived. The undisguised efforts, therefore, of James II. to re-establish a superstitious religion and a tyrannical government were soon found, by that misguided and arbitrary prince, to be ruinous to his authority. And the memory of the seven bishops, who, with such zeal, integrity, and firmness, refused to be the instruments of his insidious policy, ought to be had in grateful remembrance by every Protestant in the land. At the Revolution, principles were asserted and sanctioned by the whole Protestant Legislature, which placed our civil and religious liberties upon a basis which, we trust, with the Divine blessing, will never be removed. And the same benevolent sentiments which obtained for ourselves the civil privileges we enjoy, have at length triumphed over all the works of the

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