Ah! had he lived, before thy throne to stand,

Thy spirit keen and high,

Sure it had snapped in twain love's slender band,

So dear in memory;

Paul's strife unblest,* its serious lesson gives,

He bides with us who dies, he is but lost who lives.

XIX.

"Blessed be ye poor."

I HAVE been honoured and obeyed,
I have met scorn and slight;

And my heart loves earth's sober shade
More than her laughing light.

For what is rule but a sad weight

Of duty and a snare ?

What meanness, but with happier fate
The SAVIOUR's Cross to share?

⚫ Acts xv. 39.

d.

This my hid choice, though not from heaven,

Moves on the heavenward line ;

Cleanse it, good Lord, from sinful leaven,
And make it simply Thine.

XX.

MOSES.

MOSES, the patriot fierce, became

The meekest man on earth,

To show us how love's quickening flame
Can give our souls new birth.

Moses, the man of meekest heart,

Lost Canaan by self-will,

To show where Grace has done its part,

How sin defiles us still.

Thou, who hast taught me in Thy fear,

Yet seest me frail at best,

O grant me loss with Moses here,

To gain his future rest!

d.

d.

XXI.

"And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds."

MORTAL! if e'er thy spirits faint,
By grief or pain opprest,

Seek not vain hope, or sour complaint,
To cheer or ease thy breast;

But view thy bitterest pangs as sent
A shadow of that doom,

Which is thy soul's just punishment
In its own guilt's true home.

Be thine own judge: hate thy proud heart;

And while the sad drops flow,

E'en let thy will attend the smart,

And sanctify thy woe.

ბ.

*

XXII.

DAVID NUMBERING THE PEOPLE.

I am in a great strait-let me fall now into the hand of the Lord.

IF e'er I fall beneath Thy rod,

As through life's snares I go,
Save me from David's lot, O God!
And choose Thyself the woe.

How should I face Thy plagues? which scare,

And haunt, and stun, until

The heart or sinks in mute despair,

Or names a random ill.

If else... then guide in David's path,
Who chose the holier pain;

Satan and man are tools of wrath,

An Angel's scourge is gain.

8.

XXIII.

Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.

LORD, in this dust Thy sovereign voice
First quickened love divine;

I am all Thine,―Thy care and choice,
My very praise is Thine.

I praise Thee, while Thy providence
In childhood frail I trace,

For blessings given, ere dawning sense
Could seek or scan Thy grace;

Blessings in boyhood's marvelling hour,
Bright dreams, and fancyings strange;
Blessings, when reason's awful power
Gave thought a bolder range;

Blessings of friends, which to my door
Unasked, unhoped, have come;
And, choicer still, a countless store
Of eager smiles at home.

*