"WHOSESOEVER SINS YE REMIT, THEY ARE REMITTED

UNTO THEM; AND WHOSESOEVER SINS YE RETAIN, THEY ARE RETAINED.'

CLXV.

BEHOLD your armoury !—sword, and lightning shaft,
Culled from the stores of God's all-judging ire,
And in your wielding left! The words that waft
Power to your voice absolving, point with fire
Your awful curse. O grief! should Heaven's dread

Sire

Have stayed, for you, the mercy-dews of old

Vouchsafed, when pastors' arms in deep desire Were spread on high to bless the kneeling fold! IF CENSURE SLEEP, WILL ABSOLUTION HOLD?

Will the great KING affirm their acts of grace Who careless leave to cankering rust and mould

The flaming sword that should the unworthy chase From his pure Eden ? O beware! lest vain

Their sentence to remit, who never dare retain.

y.

PATIENCE.

CLXVI.

THE AFFLICTED CHURCH.

πλῆθι, λέων, ἄτλητα παθών, τετληότι θυμῶ.

BIDE thou thy time!

Watch with meek eyes the race of pride and crime,
Sit in the gate, and be the heathen's jest,
Smiling and self-possest.

O thou, to whom is pledged a victor's sway,
Bide thou the victor's day!

Think on the sin

That reaped the unripe seed, and toiled to win
Foul history-marks at Bethel and at Dan,

No blessing, but a ban;

Whilst the wise Shepherd* hid his heaven-told fate,

Nor recked a tyrant's hate.

Such need is gain;

Wait the bright advent that shall loose thy chain !

E'en now the shadows break, and gleams divine
Edge the dim distant line.

When thrones are trembling, and earth's fat ones quail,
True Seed! thou shalt prevail !

CLXVII,

d.

THE BACKWARD CHURCH.

"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."

WAKE, Mother dear, the foes are near,

A spoiler claims thy child;

This the sole refuge of my fear,

Thy bosom undefiled.

* David.

What spells of power, in this strange hour,

My Mother's heart enslave ?
Where is thy early bridal dower,

To suffer and to save?

Thee then I sue, Sleepless and True,

Dread Maker reconciled!

Help ere they smite, Thy shrine in view,

The Mother with the child.

8.

CLXVIII.

THE GATHERING OF THE CHURCH.

"He which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ."

WHEREFORE shrink, and say,

"'Tis vain;

In their hour hell-powers must reign ;

Vainly, vainly would we force

Fatal error's torrent course;

Earth is mighty, we are frail,

Faith is gone, and Hope must fail."

*

Yet along the Church's sky

Stars are scattered, pure and high;
Yet her wasted gardens bear

Autumn violets, sweet and rare

Relics of a spring-time clear,

Earnests of a bright new year.

Israel yet hath thousands sealed,
Who to Baal never kneeled ;
Seize the banner, spread its fold!
Seize it with no faltering hold!
Spread its foldings high and fair,
Let all see the Cross is there!

What, if to the trumpet's sound
Voices few come answering round?
Scarce a votary swell the burst,
When the anthem peals at first?
God hath sown, and He will reap ;

Growth is slow when roots are deep;