Well wast thou given

From out the heathen an adopted heir,

Raised strangely from the dead, when sin had slain
Thy former-cherished care.

O holy men, ye first-wrought gems of heaven!
Polluted in your kin,

Come to our fonts, your lustre to regain.

O Holiest Lord!.... but Thou canst take no stain Of blood, or taint of sin.

Twice in their day

Proffer of precious cost

Was made, Heaven's hand to stay

Ere all was lost.

The first prevailed;

Moses was outcast from the promised home,
For his own sin, yet taken at his prayer

To change his people's doom.

Close on their eve, one other asked and failed;
When fervent Paul was fain

The accursed tree, as CHRIST had borne, to bear,
No hopeful answer came,-a Price more rare

Already shed in vain.

d.

CV.

SUPERSTITION.

O Lord and Christ, Thy Churches of the south
So shudder, when they see

The two-edged sword sharp-issuing from Thy mouth,
As to fall back from Thee,

And seek to charms of man, or saints above, To aid them against Thee, Thou Fount of grace and love!

But I before Thine awful eyes will go

And firmly fix me there,

In my full shame; not bent my doom to know,
Not fainting with despair;

Not fearing less than they, but deeming sure,

If e'en Thy Name shall fail, nought my base heart

can cure.

CVI.

SCHISM.

O RAIL not at our brethren of the North,
Albeit Samaria finds her likeness there;
A self-formed Priesthood, and the Church cast forth
To the chill mountain air.

What, though their fathers sinned, and lost the grace Which seals the Holy Apostolic Line?

Christ's love o'erflows the bounds His Prophets trace In His revealed design.

Israel had Seers; to them the Word is nigh;
Shall not that Word run forth, and gladness give
To many a Shunammite, till in His eye

The full Seven-thousand live?

CVII.

LIBERALISM.

"Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel. Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan."

Ye cannot halve the Gospel of God's grace;
Men of presumptuous heart! I know you well.
Ye are of those who plan that we should dwell,
Each in his tranquil home and holy place;
Seeing the Word refines all natures rude,
And tames the stirrings of the multitude.

And ye have caught some echoes of its lore,
As heralded amid the joyous choirs ;

Ye marked it spoke of peace, chastised desires,
Good-will and mercy,-and ye heard no more;
But, as for zeal and quick-eyed sanctity,

And the dread depths of grace, ye passed them by.

And so ye halve the Truth; for ye in heart,
At best, are doubters whether it be true,
The theme discarding, as unmeet for you,
Statesmen or Sages. O new-encompassed art
Of the ancient Foe!-but what, if it extends
O'er our own camp, and rules amid our friends?

CVIII.

APOSTASY.

8.

France! I will think of thee, as what thou wast,
When Poictiers showed her zeal for the true creed;

Or in that age, when holy truth, tho' cast
On a rank soil, yet was a thriving seed,

Thy schools within, from neighbour countries chased;
E'en of thy pagan day I bear to read,

Thy Martyrs sanctified the guilty host,

The sons of blessed John, reared on a western coast.